


Somewhere to Begin

by jouissant



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mind Meld, New York City, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 04:32:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/pseuds/jouissant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything's fine between Jim and Spock at the end of the first five year mission, or so Jim thinks. But then Spock up and leaves San Francisco without so much as a goodbye, and Jim's suddenly faced with the prospect of life without his first officer...unless he can go to New York and win Spock back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere to Begin

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when you listen to Lily Allen's cover of "Somewhere Only We Know" for two days straight. Written for the 2014 Hey Sweetheart challenge.
> 
> Thanks to [museaway](http://www.http://archiveofourown.org/users/museaway/pseuds/museaway) for the stellar beta job and general life support. <3

The first time Jim and Spock slept together was the night Ensign Forbes got hurt, four years into the mission. So stupid, the stupidest thing, because who the fuck walks off a cliff? But she had, and hell if it hadn’t been right in front of her fiancé, and she’d live but it was way too fucking close for comfort. Jim had spent half the night consoling said fiancé while wanting nothing so much as to go back to his own quarters and stress vomit, and then either drink ‘til he was sick again or sleep for a very long time. It all depended on how self-destructive he was feeling at the end of his talk with Lieutenant Green. When he shuffled through the doors, deep in ship’s night, the first thing he laid eyes on was not a bottle or his bed but Spock, sitting at Jim’s desk in repose. He sat up and opened his eyes upon hearing the door slide open. 

“Captain,” he said by way of greeting. 

“Hey,” Jim said, and only then did he see the beer bottle sitting before Spock on the desk. 

“Drinking alone, Spock?” 

“On the contrary,” Spock said. “Waiting for company.” 

Which, as it turned out, meant doing Jim a solid and getting him nice and hammered. Later, Jim would wonder if Spock hadn’t been getting friend lessons from Bones behind his back, but tonight all he could do was roll onto his back on the floor, sprawl out of Spock’s prescribed meditation pose and laugh, laugh, laugh so as not to cry. 

“As I suspected, you are a poor student of meditation this evening,” Spock said. It was probably just the beer, but Jim thought he sounded almost fond.

“Forbes is pretty cool,” he said to the ceiling. “She organized that betting pool the time we had the ping-pong tournament, remember?” 

“I won the tournament in question, if you recall.” 

Jim snorted. “Of course you did. Trust you to kick ass at a sport you’d never even heard of before.” 

“I possess superior cognitive processing, and thus superior reaction time,” Spock said. “In retrospect, I should perhaps have been subject to a handicap in order to level the playing field.” 

“In retrospect, huh?” Jim said. “How convenient.” He scooted himself across the floor, over to where Spock still sat cross-legged, though the loose drape of his limbs suggested he had abandoned his own attempts at meditation. One of his hands rested on his knee, and suddenly it seemed like the most natural thing in the world for Jim to reach up and run his fingers over it. Spock tensed and then relaxed, which was either tacit permission or the prelude to an almighty ass-kicking. But Jim always had been an optimist. 

“You are inebriated,” Spock said quietly. 

“Yep.” 

Spock sighed softly. If Jim hadn’t been so close, he probably would’ve missed it. Spock could take it or leave it, Jim thought. Talking someone into sleeping with you was a hell of a mood-killer and creepy to boot, and all things considered it was probably 200% more advisable for both of them to just chalk this up to another of Jim Kirk’s Bad Ideas and never speak of it again. Later, it would occur to Jim that it was maybe a little odd that that was Spock’s major qualm. Not, you know, their relatively hard-won friendship or the chain of command or Jim’s stupid and mostly unearned reputation as a one-man documentary on panxenosexuality. 

Spock leaned down, studying Jim’s face. There was a softness to his eyes, and it was this that gave Jim the courage to lift himself up on his elbows to meet him with relative certainty he wasn’t going to get nerve pinched into oblivion. 

Spock took a breath as their lips met. Something in the sound galvanized Jim, and he sat up jerkily to close a hand around the back of Spock’s neck and pull him in deeper. Spock shrugged it off, wrapped his own arm around Jim’s shoulder and yanked him closer. At this, Jim’s id wriggled free of his beer-soaked sense of self-control, sat up, and took notice. 

_Oh,_ thought Jim. _That’s interesting_. 

And that, as they say, was that. 

The rest of the night was kind of blurry. He had a vague recollection of laughing a lot, more than was probably appropriate, but if you couldn’t laugh when your formerly staid Vulcan first officer was ramming your ass into the mattress, when could you? Plus, it was Spock, and by now Spock was well acquainted with Jim’s particular brand of ridiculousness. 

Somewhere between the kiss and the ass pounding, though, Spock held Jim at arms-length (and that was novel, wasn’t it, getting naked with someone who could physically dominate him with just bare hands and the will to do it). He gave Jim a measuring look, biting his lower lip as if in consideration. 

“What is it?” Jim asked, half-annoyed, acutely aware of anything standing between his dick and the attention it so desperately craved. 

“I do not wish to...complicate matters,” Spock said. It was probably the vaguest statement Jim had ever heard him make, but his meaning was immediately clear. 

“This is like the least complicated thing possible,” Jim said. “You’re hot, and I’m drunk, and we’re friends, and right now we want each other, right?” He cast a glance down to the strained black fabric of Spock’s uniform trousers. Um, right. Goddamn, it looked like Spock was seriously packing. Somewhere back in Jim’s brain, a hallelujah choir was warming up.

Spock furrowed his brow, and Jim could see the mental calculus happening in real time. 

“Spock,” Jim said. “Come on, it’s me.” 

Spock raised an eyebrow at him. “Precisely.” 

But then he appeared to have made his decision, because he snaked an arm around Jim’s waist and pulled him in close again to kiss, and it wasn’t until much later that Jim thought to wonder what exactly Spock had meant. 

The next morning, he’d woken up alone, less hungover than he had any right to be and feeling pretty damn content with the state of the world. Not a little sore, either, but that was definitely not all bad. He suffered a momentary pang of trepidation when he and Spock exited their quarters at exactly the same time, and if Jim didn’t know better he’d have thought Spock engineered it, but he was Vulcan and thus genetically indisposed to these kinds of things. Jim raised a hand in an awkward, walk-of-shame wave. 

“Captain,” Spock said, in precisely the same tone he’d have taken any other morning. 

_Oh, thank god,_ Jim thought. 

“Mr. Spock,” he said, allowing just a shade of self-satisfaction to creep into his voice, because he was Jim Kirk, and because there was no denying the fact that they’d just had objectively excellent sex. Seriously, Jim hadn’t come so hard in maybe a year. He shifted a little as his dick corroborated the assessment. 

“I trust your mental state is improved this morning?” 

“You could say that, yeah.” 

Spock nodded, and held out an arm to indicate Jim should go ahead of him to the turbolift. Jim decided to flatter himself that Spock wanted to enjoy the view one more time. On the bridge, he sat down in the center seat a little gingerly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the edge of Spock’s mouth twitch. 

Nothing changed. 

The night after their encounter, Spock appeared at Jim’s door at 2100 sharp, portable chess set under his arm and eyebrow at the ready. He trounced Jim soundly at chess, engaged in a lively debate--lively for him, anyway--on the pros and cons of the new dilithium mining operation on Varga Prime (a stone’s throw from the neutral zone and a terrible fucking idea, for the record) and then got up, bid Jim goodnight, and retired to his own quarters. No muss, no fuss. As the door slid closed behind him, Jim scuffed his toe on the grey carpet and grinned. Didn’t it just figure that Spock would handle sex the way he handled everything: cool detachment coupled with something else, a simmering enthusiasm Jim swore he caught glimpses of from time to time. Like last night, for instance. Spock’s hands on Jim’s hips hard enough to bruise, eyes managing to be somehow both fathomless and warm. The way he muttered in Vulcan as he came and the way he laid himself carefully over Jim when it was over to kiss his temple as if in thanks. 

Jim’s dick twitched. “Chill,” he muttered to himself. After all, if it was only going to happen once, he couldn’t really ask for better. 

The second time they slept together wasn’t until months later, so long that Jim had begun to think of the first time as some kind of fever dream that might never have actually happened. If the sense memory of Spock’s first thrust home powered a disproportionate number of jerk sessions, that was neither here nor there. Anyway, the second time they slept together was...different. 

An away mission, uncharted M-class planet, because wasn’t it always. They’d had to take a header off a cliff into the ocean after a particularly unpleasant incident in which Jim had been stalked by a creature that managed to be both sibilant and hulking, a nightmare hybrid of a snakey, grey-green dinosaur and a shark that breathed air and walked on four legs. Jim was backed up to a crumbling cliff edge. The creature was smart, and it was fast, and it was all Spock could do to find Jim, stun the fucker with a well-placed phaser shot between the eyes, and then haul the both of them off the cliff into a turbid yellow bay. 

Jim kicked his way to the surface, the water milky and reeking of sulphur. Beside him, Spock burst up into the air, spluttering and gasping. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” Jim said. 

Spock spit out a mouthful of water and glared. “Why did you not remain with the landing party?” 

“Initial survey said no major predators,” Jim said, shrugging as best he could while furiously treading water. “And there were these cool orange vine things.” 

“Nevertheless,” Spock said. The water wasn’t freezing, but it wasn’t exactly balmy either, and his teeth had begun to chatter already. 

“Look, thanks for the assist up there. You can yell at me all you want once we’re back on terra firma. Sound good?” Jim started swimming without waiting for an answer.

Unsurprisingly, once they made it back to shore Spock didn’t take Jim up on his offer to yell. Instead, he stripped off his sodden tunic and undershirt and stalked up the beach without a word. Their waterlogged comms were useless, and it took them a humid, buggy two hours to hike back to the landing party’s coordinates, where they found a bunch of bored looking science ensigns playing grass volleyball alongside an irate Bones. As soon as they saw Spock, one of them managed to disappear the ball and net post haste, but not before Jim shot them a thumbs up from behind Spock’s back. 

“Where in the fresh hell have you two been?” Bones said. Jim fought back the urge to make a run for it and lock himself in the shuttle. The ensigns could come too; he wasn’t heartless. 

“There was...an incident,” Spock said, and okay, Jim had to hand it to him for not immediately throwing him under the bus, not that he deserved it. If Spock had been the one to find those stupid vines he’d have had his whole volleyball team over there taking samples out the ass for hours. 

“Why didn’t you stay with the landing party?” Bones cuffed Jim on the arm. “And why are you both soaked? Spock’s going to catch his death. Get in the shuttle and dry off; what are you waiting for?” 

“Ugh, we’re going, we’re going. Are we clear to get the fuck off this rock now?” 

Bones threw his arms up. “We were waiting for your sorry asses.” 

“I just don’t get why you have to be so mean all the time, Bones.” Jim blasted him with the full effect of the baby blues and threw in a lower lip quiver for good measure. It wasn’t too much of a stretch; he was getting pretty chilled and starting to shiver uncontrollably. 

Bones snorted. “Grow a pair, Captain.” 

No sooner had they docked with the ship than Spock unfastened his harness, stood, and leapt from the shuttle door as it opened. He strode out of the shuttle bay like he had somewhere pressing to be. Jim wasn’t worried. Whatever was up Spock’s ass, chances were everything would be back to normal by the start of alpha shift tomorrow. That was just how Spock rolled, which suited Jim just fine. Back in his quarters, he took a real water shower as hot as he could get it. He had just stepped out and come back into the bedroom, towel around his waist, when the door chimed. 

“Computer, ID?” 

“Commander Spock.” 

Huh. Okay, then. “Come,” Jim called. 

The door slid open and Spock stepped through. He’d showered too, and was dressed in a fresh uniform, but something about him still looked disheveled. 

“Are you okay?” Jim asked, taking a step toward him. 

Spock did the same, bridging the gap between them in two strides. “Be silent,” he said, his voice flinty, and Jim barely had time to parse the words before Spock had seized his face in one hand and kissed him, hard. It was bruising, mostly teeth, and a small animal part of Jim’s brain recoiled from it, wanted to throw Spock off and run. But Spock gentled slightly then, as if in response. He brought the other hand up to cup Jim’s face before he dropped it to Jim’s chest and shoved him lightly toward the bed. 

“Uh, so, we’re doing this now? That’s...ah, that’s cool, I like a good post away mission fuck as much as the next guy.” 

“You are entirely too lax with safety protocol,” Spock said, tossing Jim’s towel to one side and yanking his own shirt over his head. 

“You saw the preliminary scans! There shouldn’t have been anything on that planet to screw with the safety protocol. Which is weird, by the way; don’t you think that’s weird? Where do you guess those things live, anyhow?” 

Spock knelt on the bed and fumbled with his fly. “Do not endeavor to distract me.” 

“Believe me,” Jim said, sitting back and making a show of stroking himself. “That is the last thing I’m trying to do.” 

Spock made a noise that could have been a desultory “hmmph,” had that been at all in character. Then he squirmed out of his pants with way more grace than should have been possible and sprawled out on his belly, reaching out to bat Jim’s hand away from his dick. And okay, if Spock wanted to give him a life-affirming blowjob, that was totally fine with Jim. 

“Oh my god,” Jim said as he leaned back on his hands and let Spock swallow him down. “How are you so good at this? I didn’t even know you were into guys before, what the fuck.” 

Spock looked up with a hooded expression that nonetheless managed to convey exactly what he thought of Jim’s assumptions. Which just served to make Jim think about Spock doing this to other people, and somehow led to a really fucked up but blisteringly hot image of Spock and _Pike_ that Jim was pretty sure would be permanently seared into his subconscious now that he’d imagined it. 

Spock was doing something to Jim’s balls with his hand in time to the swirl of his tongue across Jim’s head, and Jim let his hands skitter into Spock’s hair despite the frisson of danger the action provoked. Because Spock might’ve had Jim’s dick down his throat, but there was absolutely no question of who was holding the reins here. It had been the same that first time, despite the fact that Jim had initiated things. Jim was a little disturbed at how much he liked it. 

As if to underscore his position, Spock pulled off of Jim with a wet smack and looked down at his handiwork with a slightly smug expression. “Turn over,” he said. 

Jim flipped, sucking in a breath as his dick dragged against the duvet. He scooted up the bed and opened up a drawer in his nightstand, rooting through it and tossing a bottle of lube back in Spock’s direction. Spock caught it deftly and Jim waggled his ass at him obnoxiously. 

“Yeah, you wanna fuck this,” Jim said, laughing. 

Never let it be said that Jim Kirk wasn’t a bratty asshole in bed, in any capacity. But it was funny, now that he thought about it: from the second Spock had marched into Jim’s quarters, there’d never been a second of awkwardness. Maybe they’d gotten it all over with last time, and he’d been too drunk to notice. At any rate, Spock was trailing lube-slicked fingers along Jim’s crack, so Jim decided to shelve his musings for the time being. 

“This lube is awesome,” he said. “I picked it up at this sex shop on Risa last shore leave. Risians, man, now there’s a species that like to--”

“You are entirely too talkative,” Spock said. 

“Yeah, well, welcome to the Jim Kirk experience.” 

“I find myself well acquainted, thank you.”

Spock wasn’t making a huge deal of the whole prep thing, which was fine by Jim. Instead, he had lubed himself up and was kind of rubbing the head of his dick over Jim’s hole. He pushed inside, then back out again, and what the fuck, Spock was a total tease. Jim tried to back up on him, but Spock laid a hot hand on Jim’s lower back and held him at bay. It had been months, but Jim could practically feel Spock balls-deep inside him already, and the memory made him want to make embarrassing noises of encouragement. 

“You can just fuck me, you know,” he said instead. 

“Did you never learn the virtues of patience?” 

“God, you’re a snarky bastard when you’ve got your dick halfway up someone’s ass.” 

Spock didn’t respond, just continued amusing himself at the expense of Jim’s asshole. This was the weirdest part for Jim; once his partner was fully ensconced, all was generally right with the world, and Jim would swear to anyone who’d listen that he was so incredibly down with bottoming that it wasn’t even funny. But this, the actual moment of penetration--even as it felt good, it triggered some innate sense of panicky wrongness no matter how many times he’d done this or how hard it eventually made him come. Spock seemed to know it, too, to be toying with him deliberately, and as Jim panted into the pillow it occurred to him that that was actually possible. 

“What the fuck are you _doing_? Would you just get on with it?” 

“Very well.” Spock gave a contemplative hum and slid into Jim without any further warning. He bottomed out and stilled, and the only sound in the room was Jim’s high pitched and totally manly whine of pleasure. He shot out a hand and scrabbled at the mattress, grasping at nothing in particular, and he was utterly shocked when Spock reached up and took it. 

“Fuck,” Jim said, sucking in lungfuls of air in an effort to adjust. “That’s...mmmph.” He was unable to achieve a more eloquent statement than that. Spock was leaning over him now, pressing their bodies together in a way that seemed altogether more intimate than Jim would have expected, given Spock’s tenor up until that point. Spock’s breath was hot at Jim’s ear, and when he began to move he did so achingly slowly, as though he’d had his fun and was now content to roll his hips into Jim languidly, roll them over onto their sides so he could reach around and play with the head of Jim’s dick, palming it with a hiss of pleasure. 

“Feel good?” Jim asked, because he was so totally curious about the hand thing and Spock had never been especially forthcoming. 

Spock nodded against Jim’s shoulder. “Yes,” he said, and there was a breathy, faraway quality to his voice that gave Jim pause. “Are you...well?” Spock asked. 

Jim laughed softly. “Yeah, I am.” 

“I am gratified,” Spock said. 

He ducked his head and kissed Jim’s shoulder, and all at once Jim realized he was talking about the mission. The laugh died in his throat, replaced by a dumbfounded silence during which Jim cast about frantically for what to say. In the end, he said nothing, and the strange gravity of the moment ebbed, Spock pressing another kiss to Jim’s back and beginning to move again in earnest. Jim relaxed, because it was easy now to let himself drift, push back against Spock until he was both filled from behind and tormented from the front as Spock worked him just a shade too slowly and unevenly. Once again, it seemed he was doing it on purpose. Eventually, Jim forgot anything resembling pride and was reduced to first asking nicely, then cajoling, and then outright begging. Whatever had been still in Spock was now sufficiently disturbed, such that he sank his teeth into the jut of shoulderblade he’d kissed so softly a minute ago, and took hold of Jim’s hips and jerked, and fuck if there weren’t going to be wine-stain smudges of bruise there tomorrow to prove to Jim that this had happened. 

Again. 

And then Jim was coming, and his mind whited out and returned blissfully blank, and any questions that might’ve hung in the air at any point, any hitch in Spock’s breathing as they lay there together afterwards...any of these things were altogether forgotten. Six months left of the mission, and again, nothing had changed.

***

“You’re holding out on me.”

She absolutely was. Jim could see it in the set of her shoulders, the way she shifted from foot to foot. Uhura knew he knew, too; what kind of comms officer would she be if she didn’t? Under the right set of circumstances, a diplomatic conference or a tricky first contact, Jim was pretty sure her every breath was conscious, calculated. But right now, Jim was standing in her barely-unpacked living room at 7:30 in the morning, and five years of 7:30 in the morning with Uhura meant Jim knew she was nothing without at least two cups of coffee. 

Which was why he was bribing her with a double eye-opener, in the cheesy red holiday cup and everything. She looked at it warily, but she took it and raised it to her lips, eyes narrowing as she appraised. Nyota Uhura was a certified coffee snob. 

“This is good,” she said accusatorily.

“New place, right off campus,” he said with a shrug. “Looks like someone learned to pull a decent shot of espresso while we were gone.” 

“Hmm.” 

“Come _on,_ Uhura, I know you know where he is.” 

She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “So what if I do, Jim? You’re going to traipse across the country and wait at his doorstep like a stray cat?” 

“Across the country, you say,” Jim said, wagging a finger at Uhura. “So he’s on-planet.” 

“Yes, he’s on-planet, okay? I don’t know for how long, though.” 

“What the hell, we’ve been back for literally ten days and he’s so sick of Earth he has to jet off for...for where, the colony? No, this is weird. This doesn’t add up. Spock is not exactly an impulsive guy; he’s got to have been planning this.” 

She lowered her coffee, pressing her lips together bloodlessly. 

“He was planning it,” Jim said quietly. He felt suddenly like he’d been unspooled, sent reeling. He turned around, raking a hand back through his hair. “What the fuck, he was planning to take off like this. All that caginess, all that cloak and dagger shit about getting back, he was just…” He turned back to her. “Did you...did you know?” 

Uhura shook her head quickly, like she was eager to convince him of that, at least. “I didn’t,” she said. “I swear I didn’t. I mean, we talked about it, but he was vague, you know?” 

“What exactly did he say to you?” 

“He said he was keeping his options open. Well, ‘endeavoring to explore all potential avenues.’ Same difference.” 

Jim sucked in a deep breath, exhaled through his nose. Like Vulcan meditation; the one time Spock tried to teach him, he’d ended up mostly rolling around on the floor of his quarters in culturally insensitive hysterics. Even Spock had smiled, though, eventually. And later that night, they’d---well. 

“Did he at least leave a forwarding address?” 

“He left a comm number. He didn’t have a place yet; I think he was going to rent something once he got there.” 

“Got where? Uhura, come on, just help me out here.”

She sighed. “New York. He’s in New York.” 

There was a big ball of pissed off starting to pulse in Jim’s chest, but he sighed it out as best he could because the only other person there was Uhura and it sure as hell wasn’t her fault. It probably wasn’t Spock’s either, not really. It was Jim’s, for never asking, for just assuming...but god dammit, how could he have missed that his fucking first officer wasn’t planning on sticking around after the mission? Another thought occurred to Jim then, and he looked up at Uhura with what was probably a much more stricken look than the situation called for. But it was Spock, and Jim was a lot of things, but he usually wasn’t this oblivious. All things considered, things felt pretty freaking dire. 

“Is this _permanent?_ ” 

Uhura didn’t say anything. 

“Uhura!” He was aware that he sounded a little panicky, but under the circumstances he couldn’t bring himself to care overly much.

She shook her head. “Like I said, he said he was going to keep his options open, and that’s all I know.” 

“But why? Why would he do this without at least talking to me about it?” 

She looked up at him, and there was something in her face that Jim couldn’t quite put his finger on. Melancholy, maybe, mixed with...oh god, pity? He hadn’t seen her wear this particular look before. Five years on, that was saying something. She took a step toward him, herding him toward the door. Whether she wanted him to charge forth and go find Spock or just get the hell out of her apartment, he didn’t know.

“Why?” Jim said again, almost to himself. 

She held up her hands, the universal gesture for done with your shit, Jim. “You’re going to have to ask him that yourself.”

***

Jim leaned against the shuttle window and tried to ignore the churning in his stomach. He’d tempered over the years, he guessed--at least, he hoped he had. Maybe that was why he was so freaked out. The tendency to leap without looking, Pike had called it. Jim had had mixed results from that strategy, though you could never say it lacked flair. As the pilot came over the comm system and announced their final descent into JFK, he closed his eyes and hoped as fervently as he ever had that he wasn’t about to make a huge mistake.

 _It’s fine. It’s Spock, it’s going to be fine._ He wished he believed it. 

He’d lit out of San Francisco straight from Uhura’s, practically, only stopping off at his Starfleet-issue shoebox of a temporary apartment to throw some clothes in a backpack and shoot off a quick email to Bones. Too spineless to even comm, Jim heard in Bones’s drawl. He’s in Georgia, don’t want to intrude, he’d told himself, and it was partially true. But mostly Jim didn’t feel like being talked out of his righteous indignation, or worse, find out that Bones somehow knew about Spock leaving too. He sighed and gripped the armrests, raising his head to peer out the window at the mercury gleam of the city jutting into the sky. He hadn’t been here in awhile--three years or over three hundred, depending on how you looked at it. Maybe he’d make a weekend of it, even if Spock told him to fuck off. 

At the shuttleport, Jim fished his comm out of the bottom of his pack and jabbed at the power button with his thumb. Five new messages, the device told him helpfully. Jim winced. He was pretty sure at least three of those were Bones. It was like he had a sixth sense for whenever Jim did something stupid. He decided to remain blissfully ignorant of Bones’s opinion for the time being and scrolled through his contacts until he found the number Uhura texted to him under duress. He stared at it for a minute before he screwed up his face and tapped it, fighting the urge to throw his comm in the nearest trashcan and run as it started to ring. 

“Spock here.” 

Oh, fuck. Jim opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a parched squawk. 

“Hello?” Spock sounded slightly put out and thoroughly himself. This could really go either way. 

“Hey, Spock?” 

“Captain,” Spock said flatly. 

“Yeah, it’s me. Um. Hi?” 

“If this is a social call, now is not the most convenient time.” Seriously, the brushoff? That was where he was going with this? 

“No, this is not a social call, Spock. This is me trying to follow a trail of fucking breadcrumbs to figure out where the hell my first officer disappeared to, and why.” 

“If this is a question of policy, my placement here was approved through all the proper channels, and--”

“Last time I checked, I was your captain. How the hell am I not one of the proper channels?” 

“Our mission is at an end,” Spock said, and the blithe way he reeled that statement off caught Jim in the solar plexus something fierce. Maybe he hadn’t exactly processed it yet, or maybe he’d just been so sure they’d all be back out there together in a year he hadn’t been thinking of it as an end so much as an...interim period. 

“Our mission is at an end,” Spock repeated. “While you remain a ranking Starfleet captain, you are no longer--”

“Yours,” Jim said hoarsely. 

“--my immediate superior,” Spock finished pointedly. He fell silent. Jim imagined he could hear Spock breathing on the other end of the line, but it was just the crackle of dead air. 

“Well, that’s great,” Jim said, sighing. “How about the part where I’m your friend? I know you’re not exactly well-acquainted with the concept, but friends don’t usually quit on each other without so much as a throwaway conversation about it.” 

“I am still a member of Starfleet.” 

“Sure, but you’re ‘endeavoring to explore all avenues,’ right?” 

Now Spock did take a breath, a quick little huff that Jim might have taken for annoyed from anyone else. “You have spoken with Lieutenant Uhura.” 

“Don’t be mad at her, okay? I basically pulled rank and made her tell me. And it’s a good thing, too, or I’d probably be at home right now leaving my thousandth message on your ‘Fleet comm and totally embarrassing myself.” 

“Perhaps my departure was somewhat hasty,” Spock said. “However, once Earthside, I was eager to begin my assignment.” 

“What is it you’re doing, exactly?” 

“The Vulcan embassy here in New York houses a variety of archival materials taken from the from the Science Academy during the attempted evacuation of the planet,” Spock said tersely. “Scientists ands laboratory personnel are attempting to remediate them and revive the VSA’s research where possible. Some of this research pertains to my areas of expertise; thus I am assisting where possible.” 

“Oh,” Jim said. “That sounds...really interesting, actually.” 

“Please endeavor to contain your surprise,” Spock said, and it sounded so normal that it made Jim’s stomach drop a little. He snorted. 

“Captain, I must return to my duties. I anticipate returning to San Francisco several times over the course of the next year; perhaps we could arrange--” 

“You’re staying for the whole year?” 

“I am.” 

“Goddammit,” Jim said. Well, this was it then. Trump card time. “I’m...I’m here.” 

“Pardon? I believe our connection may be weakening.” 

_Oh, fuck you, you dissembling asshole,_ Jim thought. “I’m here. In the city.” 

Spock sighed at that, a bonafide sigh. Jim could feel the bitchface through the comm line; it was actually pretty impressive. “Where are you?” Spock asked. 

“You know, downtown. Walking around,” Jim lied, because he had a bad feeling if he admitted he was still at the shuttleport Spock would tell him in no uncertain terms to get his ass back on a shuttle and go back to San Francisco. “So will you just meet me? Can we at least talk about this in person?” 

Spock was silent for a long moment. Finally, he spoke again. “278 East Houston,” he said. “If you wish to wait indoors, there is a café adjacent to the building that should prove adequate. I will join you as soon as possible.” 

Jim narrowed his eyes as if Spock could see him through the comm. “I thought you had to get back to work?” 

“Spock out.” He hung up. 

Jim stared at his comm. Well, he thought. That was unexpected.

***

Jim was staring at his third cup of coffee when he looked up to see Spock step into the café. Outside, the late afternoon shadows had coalesced into the blue of evening, and the lights were beginning to come on. Across the street, an apartment window was rimmed with Christmas lights, which seemed incongruously cheery given Jim’s mood. Spock didn’t come all the way inside; he just hovered in the entryway for a moment and fixed Jim with a querulous eyebrow before turning and stepping back out onto the sidewalk. Having long since paid for his coffee, Jim trailed after him, a cold sense of foreboding lodged with the acidic burn in his gut.

Spock stood with his hands in his pockets, head lowered as if examining the gum-patched square of concrete at his feet with great interest. He looked up as Jim joined him, expression blank. 

“Hey,” Jim said, unable to stop the reflexive spread of a grin at the sight of his erstwhile first. 

“Hello,” Spock said. He looked none too pleased to see Jim, and while it made him feel kind of shitty, Jim guessed he couldn’t blame him. “My residence is just across the street,” Spock said, nodding in the direction of a narrow grey building sandwiched between a bagel shop and a restaurant supply store. He set off briskly for the crosswalk, and once again Jim followed. 

Spock’s apartment was cozier than Jim expected, and the sight of this was somehow offensive to him, as if he’d expected it to be a spare grey garret just by virtue of not being on the Enterprise, not being in San Francisco. In the end, the apartment was nicer looking than Jim’s bland corporate-seeming loaner, and he didn’t quite know how to deal with it. He stood in the center of the room and crossed his arms over his chest. Spock carried a black leather shoulder bag, and he hung it from a hook on the wall next to the door. Then he stood and looked at Jim. He was wearing black from head to toe, slim cut trousers and a freaking turtleneck and a thick boiled-wool peacoat. He wore a knit hat pulled down over his ears, his stupid default disguise on so many planets, and he reached up to tug it off in what seemed a very human gesture. His hair was mussed and stuck up at right angles. The apartment was warm, and Spock started to remove his coat. Jim kept his on.

“You’re wearing civvies,” Jim said. “It’s weird.” 

“You have seen me in civilian attire numerous times over the past five years.” 

“I know. It’s just--”

Spock paused, coat half unbuttoned. “Jim, why have you come here?” 

His tone was utterly bland, but Jim somehow got the impression of irritation anyway. It was funny; after all this time he’d learned to read Spock in the set of his shoulders, in his hands, in the very way he moved through the air. There was so much to him that Jim wondered how he’d ever thought Spock a flat-affect automaton. 

He had the sudden urge to walk over and shake him. He balled his hands up into fists instead. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “I found out you left and it was like...I couldn’t just sit there and wonder about it. It would’ve driven me insane.” 

“The alternative to which involved travelling across the continent on a whim and effectively appearing on my doorstep uninvited?” 

“Look, I didn’t say I wasn’t already insane.” 

A muscle in Spock’s cheek twitched. Jim was going to go ahead and assume that was him repressing some sort of emotional response to Jim’s blatant idiocy, and that was a million times better than blank, uber-Vulcan Spock, which was what Jim had more than half expected to be dealing with here. Spock was holding back, Jim realized abruptly. Whatever this was, it was big, and Spock didn’t want to talk about it. And if Jim knew one thing about Spock, it was that if he didn’t want to do something, hell and high water both couldn’t convince him to.

“You know what? You’re right,” Jim said, suddenly resigned. This was nuts; Spock hadn’t been wrong to insinuate he had a few screws loose for just flying out on a wild hair.

“I shouldn’t have come; it was totally presumptuous. If you want to leave ‘Fleet, if you want to do something else, it’s your life and your business. I just thought…” He waved a hand dismissively. “Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. I’m sorry.” He knelt next to his backpack and rummaged through it, pulling out his PADD and calling up the transport schedules. Spock still hadn’t said anything in response to Jim’s mea culpa. Jim could feel him looking, a weird warm tingle at the crown of his head. 

“Shit,” Jim said, looking at the schedule. 

“Is there a problem?” 

“Next shuttle’s not until four in the morning, and that’s not even direct; it’s a connection through Cedar Rapids. Too bad mom’s off-planet or I’d stop in and say hi.” He stood up, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “Oh well. I’ll get a hotel, I guess.” He raised a hand in a curt, clipped wave. “See you when I see you. Comm me next time you’re in town, if you want.” 

Spock crossed his arms behind his back. “You may spend the night here, if you wish,” he said. 

“Spock, it’s fine. I’ll just--”

“It makes little sense to pay an exorbitant number of credits for lodging when my residence offers sufficient space to house you for the night,” Spock said, brow furrowed as he appeared to realize that logic was coming down on the wrong side of this situation. 

“I mean, that’s really cool of you, but if you’re uncomfortable, it’s no problem to get a room somewhere.” 

“My comfort is not at issue,” Spock said stiffly. He gestured to the sofa. “Please. I believe the colloquial expression is ‘make yourself at home.’” Jim decided against pointing out that that offer was usually more welcoming when you weren’t acting like you had a phaser to your head. He shrugged and sat down on the sofa. Spock finished taking his coat off and hung it up, then stood at the center of the room like he was waiting for something to happen. 

Jim checked his chrono. Ten of six. The winter dark outside made it seem later. “Are you getting hungry? If there’s a grocery store around here I could run down and grab something, make us dinner. It’s the least I can do.” 

Spock looked over at the spotless galley kitchen. Jim had a hunch that Spock hadn’t laid a finger on anything in it other than the replicator. “That will not be necessary,” he said. “My replicator is fully functional.” 

“I know the replicator works,” Jim said. “I’m offering to cook you dinner.” 

“The replicator can provide any number of dishes in a matter of seconds.” 

Jim flopped back on the sofa with a sigh. Fine. Let them eat crappy replicator food, if that was what Spock wanted. God knew he’d had way worse meals. The fact that over the past five years most of them had been eaten with a generally agreeable Spock, who wasn’t mysteriously pissed off at life, was a fact that didn’t escape him. 

“Replicator’s fine, then,” Jim said. “What are you having?” 

“I have programmed in a number of Vulcan dishes. This model of replicator is significantly more adept at rendering them than were the models on the ship.” He said this last almost conversationally. Jim was dimly aware that the sense of abject betrayal he felt when he heard it was totally disproportionate and ridiculous, but that didn’t stop him from feeling it anyway. 

“Whatever. Batch me up some plomeek.” 

They sat at Spock’s flimsy dining table and ate in near silence. For once, Jim was grateful for Spock’s disinclination to small talk, especially if his idea of small talk was shit talking about the _Enterprise._ Jim finished his food in record time, even for him--and fine, it was definitely better plomeek soup than he’d ever had on the ship, not that he would ever be caught dead admitting Spock was right about that. He stood up and walked to the window, aware of Spock’s eyes on his back again. He put his palms to the sill and leaned out, resting his forehead on the cold glass. He squinted through the room’s yellow reflection, trying to get a look at the sky. 

“Huh,” he said, as if to himself. “I think it’s starting to snow.”

***

When Jim woke the next morning, winter had crept into the apartment. Cold, blue roan light streamed in from the windows, and despite the fact that Jim was pretty sure Spock had the temp settings cranked as far up as possible he could have sworn he felt a chill. He kicked the blanket away and slid off of the couch. He dressed as quietly as he could and padded over to the window in his socks to peer outside at a world gone white. Jim grinned and wrestled with the latches on the window. When he got it open, the pile of snow that had accumulated against it collapsed into Spock’s floor, loose as confectioner’s sugar. Jim leaned outside and took a deep breath. Spock’s fire escape was buried, and beyond it Jim could barely see the street through a skyful of flurry.

“Why is there frozen precipitation melting onto the floor?” 

Jim had momentarily forgotten the previous night, the strange chill between them. This morning, there was only Spock standing there without shoes on, feet pale against the hardwood floor, hair mussed again. 

“Morning,” Jim said, smiling. 

Spock bit his lower lip and stared at the puddling snow, probably wondering what in the universe had possessed him to let Jim sleep over. “Good morning.” 

“So, just a hunch, but I’ve got the feeling I’m not getting out of here today.” 

“I will consult the shuttleport’s weather advisories. However, at first glance, it would appear unlikely,” Spock said, looking at the small pool of snowmelt.

“Hey,” Jim said. “Listen. Can we...can we call a truce?” He turned away from the window, turning around to lean against the wall and face Spock. 

“A truce, Captain?” 

“Thought I wasn’t your captain anymore,” Jim said. His mouth felt dry, which was weird. Probably the heat in here; he always used to get so parched in the winter back home, between the crisp air outside and the climate controls working overtime inside the house. 

“I suppose old habits die hard.” Spock quirked an eyebrow at Jim. 

“I’m stuck here, probably,” Jim said. “And yeah, it’s my fault, and I feel like an asshole about it. But look, if we’re snowed in together or whatever, can you just...can you not be pissed at me the whole time? And don’t say Vulcans don’t get angry, because we both know that’s not true.” Jim’s face felt hot. He felt like an idiot just saying the words, like some blushy kid. But the morning was cold and raw and he couldn’t deal with that from Spock too, not now. 

Spock blinked. He looked like he had a headache. He looked away, off into a corner of the room. Jim hadn’t bothered turning on the lights, and smudges of navy shadow clung to the walls. 

“I am not angry with you,” Spock said finally.

“You’re not?” 

“No.” Spock’s shoulders slumped just slightly, and he seemed very tired in spite of the early hour. He went back into the bedroom and emerged a second later carrying a balled-up pair of grey socks in one hand and his boots in the other, each hanging from a crooked fingertip. He sat on the sofa and bent to put the boots on. 

Jim stood and watched him, pondering Spock’s admission. He’d take Spock at face value, he decided. If he wanted to let Jim in on whatever brought him here, then fine. If not...well, Jim would just have to be okay with that somehow. 

“Last night, when I asked about the grocery store,” Jim started. 

Spock looked up. “Yes?” 

“Is there one around here? Because I don’t know about you, but cold weather makes me fucking starving, and if I’m not on a starship I’m sure as hell not going to replicate coffee.” 

“You appear to be fixated on the idea of cooking,” Spock said. 

“Why replicate something if you don’t have to?” 

“One might ask the reverse.” 

“One might be boring and tastebud deficient, which I know you aren’t because I saw you put away like eight courses at your dad’s birthday party that time. And I seem to recall chocolate milkshakes for dessert--”

“There is a market located five point seven blocks to the south,” Spock said abruptly. 

Jim grinned at him, sitting heavily down next to him on the sofa to put his own boots on. His weight made the cushions dip, and they slid toward each other so that their legs touched. Spock looked markedly down at the place where the blue of Jim’s jeans met the black of his own, and Jim followed his gaze. Spock slid his palms down his thighs reflexively and stood fluidly to get his coat. 

“You can stay if you want. It’s pretty cold out, and I’m sure I can find it.” 

Spock shook his head. “I will accompany you.” 

Out on the street, the city was as close to quiet as Jim guessed it ever was. Streetsweepers had carved lines of dark asphalt out of snow-caked Houston, and Jim turned his collar up against the wind. Spock had pulled his hat down over his ears, and without visible pointed pinnae or the harsh line of his bangs Jim thought he might have had to do a double take to recognize him if they’d passed each other on the sidewalk. 

“What do you intend to prepare?” Spock asked, once they’d found the grocery store and stomped the snow off their boots, and Spock seemed able to devote physical and mental energy to something besides maintaining a stable core temperature. 

“When we were kids, whenever we had a snow day--that’s when they cancel school because of--”

“Snow?” 

“Um, yes. When they cancel school because of snow and you get to stay home all day and screw around, and it’s awesome. Except probably not for your parents. Anyway, my mom would always get up early and watch the news for the school closures, and then if we were off she’d go down the kitchen and make us french toast and bacon and we’d wake up and smell it cooking. It was like the smell of freedom, man.” 

Spock looked skeptical. 

“Trust me,” Jim said, smacking him on the shoulder and dislodging a dusting of snowflakes on the black wool. “Have you ever had french toast?” 

“I have not,” Spock said. 

“Well, you’re going to love it. Maybe we’ll skip the bacon, though. Or I can replicate some for me so it won’t make your whole apartment smell. What do you have in your fridge already?” 

It turned out that all Spock had in his fridge was a temperature-sensitive lab specimen, a few packets of soy sauce, and a bottle of white wine given to him by a Federation diplomat who apparently knew nothing about Vulcans. 

“Okay, so we’re starting from scratch. Not a problem. Let’s divide and conquer, shall we? You go over to the dairy aisle and get me milk, butter, and eggs. I’m going looking for bread and fun stuff.” 

“Fun stuff, Captain?” 

“Wait and see, Spock. Just wait and see.”

***

Jim slid the spatula under a golden triangle of french toast and deposited it on Spock’s plate. “Now for the fun stuff,” he said, drowning the bread in amber syrup and sticking an artfully fanned and very out of season strawberry on top like a crown.

“Perfect. I’m going to put whipped cream on mine, you want some?” 

“I believe this to be an appropriate amount of fun,” Spock said. “Thank you.” 

Jim shoved a piece of replicated bacon into his mouth. “You’re welcome,” he said. “And hey, I owe you for letting me crash with you.” 

“You owe me no debt,” Spock said, cutting his french toast into neat pieces. “If I implied otherwise, it was unintended.” He looked up at Jim. “You are my friend, and as such my home is open to you always.” 

“This is some truce.” 

“As I said earlier, I bear you no ill will.” 

“I’m...I’m glad,” Jim said. “Seriously, that’s kind of a load off. So...thank you.” 

Spock inclined his head. “You are welcome.” He took a bite of french toast. Jim noted with satisfaction that he’d added extra butter, and dragged his fork through the syrup. Good. Spock was always just this side of too skinny, particularly during the last six months or so of the mission. It was like slowing down to eat a decent meal struck him as a waste of time, though what exactly he was making time for instead was a mystery to Jim. But Spock always did like to keep a careful eye on productivity, his and everyone else’s. 

“What do you want to do today? Snowy Saturday, nowhere to be…” Jim knew what his first choice would be, with anyone else at least. Maybe even with Spock, once upon a time, though Jim had a hard time imagining this version of Spock spending the day in bed. 

“There is an item at the embassy undergoing conservation treatment. It is imperative that I look in on it today.” 

“Oh,” Jim said. He guessed Vulcans probably didn’t hold much truck with weekends. It figured. 

Spock laid his fork carefully atop his plate. “You...are welcome to accompany me, if you are amenable to braving the elements.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Jim said. “That sounds good.” 

They finished eating and split the task of cleaning up, and while Jim might look askance at replicators much of the time he was definitely a fan of the recycler for making short work of tidying. Spock put his cold weather armor back on, and Jim got a sudden flash of mini Spock bundled head to toe for an Iowa winter. He couldn’t hold back a snort of laughter, and Spock paused in the process of mummifying himself with an impossibly long grey scarf to look at Jim quizzically. 

“Do you find my appearance humorous?” 

“No, no...of course not. Just thinking about something.” He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand to hide his grin. 

Once again, Spock was quiet as they walked, leading the way to the subway station with the occasional well-placed nod of his head. Jim watched him out of the corner of his eye, hands jammed in his pockets and chin tucked beneath a fold of scarf. 

“Couldn’t you have figured out a work-from-home kind of thing?” Jim asked as they descended into the distinctly warmer environs of the station. Spock bought him a Metrocard without a word, waving off Jim’s offer of credits and handing him the yellow rectangle of flimsy plassteel. 

“I will doubtless utilize the remainder of the credits on the card once you depart,” he said. “And no, working from home would not have been possible, as my work requires specialized laboratory equipment not readily accessible in a home environment. Additionally, as I repeatedly remind myself, winter is not a perpetual state.” 

“Well, at least they have four seasons out here, as opposed to our part of California.” Dammit, Jim, stop talking. The last thing he was supposed to be doing was talking up New York, despite his earlier vow to remain blasé on the subject of Spock’s future.

They fell silent waiting for the train. Jim found himself skirting dangerously close to mental territory he hadn’t let himself enter in a while, but today he was feeling maudlin and self-destructive, so what the hell. The F, when it came, was sparsely populated, as if most people had decided to give travel a pass today if they could. They got on and took a seat, and Jim noticed with subdued interest that Spock sat next to him on the bench, despite the fact that there was plenty of room in the car. Jim let his eyes fall closed as the train jolted into motion. If he let his mind wander, didn’t listen to the comm’s helpful monotone (“Stand clear of the closing doors, please!”) or the announcement of the next stop (2nd Avenue), it could almost be another time, another New York. They hadn’t ridden the subway much back then; Jim wasn’t sure Spock had at all. Money’d been so tight, always, and Spock was up to his eyeballs in his damn processor project once they’d gotten the materials together. 

But there was one evening, hot and buggy. Edith wanted to take him to Central Park; it was midsummer, she said, and there was a fair. Jim remembered the smell of popcorn and hotdogs on the makeshift midway, a kid with a pink bubble of cotton candy the size of his head. He’d wanted to buy one for Spock, just to see what he’d make of it. But by the end of the night, sweaty and slouching against Edith on the train home, he’d forgotten. 

“Is it difficult for you?” Spock asked, jerking Jim back to the present. 

“What?” 

“Being here.” He didn’t clarify, but then again he didn’t need to. 

“Hadn’t thought about it much.” 

“Do you...do you recall what I told you at the time?” 

Jim didn’t turn to look at Spock. A sad smile slid unbidden across his face. “Of course I do,” he said. 

_After Edith, when they were back on the ship, Spock found Jim on the observation deck. Jim dragged the back of his hand across his eyes and Spock studiously looked away until Jim had scraped himself together. He sniffed. God, this was embarrassing._

_“I think I loved her,” he told Spock’s reflection._

_“I am sorry.”_

_“The thing is,” Jim said, “the hell of it is, I’m not sure I had…” He shook his head, let his words trail off. Nine times out of ten, Spock probably would have just let it go, but leave it to him to defy the odds now._

_“Captain?”_

_Jim swallowed. “I’m not sure I’d ever felt this way before. It’s stupid, it’s so stupid, but I just keep thinking it. What if...what if this was it for me?” He raked a hand through his hair. Next to him, Spock exhaled, just shy of sighing._

_“It’s ridiculous, I know,” Jim said, but damned if he couldn’t keep the catch out of his voice._

_Spock turned to face him, and looked at him quietly for so long that Jim had to look away again._

_“I do not pretend expertise on the human concept of love,” Spock said quietly. “I can only speak from my limited personal experience. However, I find myself reasonably confident in stating that, should you wish it, you will feel this emotion again.”_

__Did Bones put you up to this? _was what Jim wanted to ask, but they were kind of having a moment here, so he refrained. “Thank you,” he said instead. “That’s...actually really comforting, Spock. A plus sympathy.” He moved to clap Spock on the shoulder, but in practice it turned out dangerously close to a caress._

So yes. Of course Jim remembered. 

“And have you?” Spock asked. He spoke just as quietly as he had on the observation deck, and the question was so unlike him that Jim almost didn’t believe he’d spoken at all. 

“Have I found love again?” Jim couldn’t say it without more than a hint of facetiousness.

“I apologize,” Spock said. “My query was inappropriate, and--”

“No,” Jim said. “No, I haven’t.”

Spock nodded. “I see.”

The train stopped with a jolt, the doors sliding open. A woman stepped into the car, holding a sticky-faced toddler by the hand. She shot them an apologetic glance and set about trying to dab at the kid’s face with a tissue, her attempts met with squealing and writhing noncompliance.

“The next stop is Broadway/Bleecker Street,” chirped the comm. “Please stand clear of the closing doors.”

The doors glided shut with a soft hiss, and Spock didn’t say anything else. The car swayed and sent Jim’s shoulder lurching against Spock’s. Spock tensed and scooted over a fraction of an inch, so they weren’t touching anymore. Across the car, the woman had given up her cleanup attempt and leaned in close, whispering into her little boy’s ear. For his part, he watched Jim and Spock with wide brown eyes and smiled, gap-toothed, when he caught Jim looking.

***

Spock’s lab was predictably quiet, since it was both a Saturday and a predominantly Vulcan establishment. White coat clad Vulcans glided around the place, nodding at Spock in greeting and barely acknowledging Jim, which was neither offensive nor surprising to him at this point. Spock notwithstanding, Jim had spent his fair share of time working with Vulcans over the course of the mission; the colony had expanded in leaps and bounds, but not without attendant growing pains, which frequently required Federation support. This was met with not a little thinly-veiled chagrin. For all their appeals to logic above all, Vulcans conducted themselves with a pride that Jim privately thought bordered on haughty. He thought he’d finally endeared himself to a choice few, though, one of whom was Spock’s father. Once upon a time, Sarek had become a fixture in the _Enterprise_ ’s corridors, and he and Jim had struck up a certain degree of camaraderie. The look on Spock’s face when he walked into the rec room to the sight of Jim and Sarek going head to head over the chessboard was not something Jim was ever going to forget, or something Bones was ever going to let Spock live down.

“My office,” Spock indicated, showing Jim into a spare rectangle of a room, undecorated save for a painting hung over the desk. Jim stepped over to it almost reflexively; it was a landscape rendered in reds and pinks and golds, and the contrast to the stark white of the rest of the room drew him in like a tractor beam.

“This is beautiful,” Jim said.

He nearly started when Spock replied; he’d stepped noiselessly over to stand beside him, and his voice was just at Jim’s left ear. “It is a likeness of the view from the sunporch at our ancestral home on Vulcan,” he said. “My mother took much pleasure from it. I commissioned it from a Terran artist as a gift for my father; I am storing it here until such time as I may deliver it to him in person.”

If Jim wanted to store a painting, he wasn’t sure he’d give it pride of place over his desk, but hell, if Spock felt the need to justify hanging a piece of artwork that reminded him of his mom, that was his own business.

“Sarek will love it,” Jim said. Spock gave him a curious look, but said nothing in reply.

“I must look in on my experiment,” he said presently. “You may remain here and await my return; the laboratory is restricted to visitors.”

“Sounds good. I’ve got some stuff to catch up on myself.”

When Spock left, Jim sat heavily in the desk chair and took out his PADD. He opened a blank document and tapped at the screen with his stylus. He was allegedly teaching a command seminar in the spring and he was supposed to be creating such mysterious items as a syllabus and lesson plan. For the millionth time, he wished fervently that Pike was still around. He’d gone so far as to send a panicky missive to his old ‘Fleet email, but of course it bounced back right away and made Jim feel even shittier.

Instead of working, he sat at the desk and stared into space. If Spock was back in San Francisco, he’d probably be teaching too, and he and Jim could suffer together. Well, Jim would suffer and Spock would take pity on him and help him hash this shit out. God, it was all wrong, Spock being here. Being here and being so freaking touchy...it almost reminded Jim of the Vulcan Biology Incident, which thus far had remained blissfully at the back of Jim’s mind. He felt vaguely guilty for being grateful that Uhura had borne most of the brunt of that particular episode, although whatever had happened to Spock down on the colony seemed to have been the last nail in the coffin of their relationship. She was totally tight-lipped on the subject, saying only that things hadn’t gone to plan, though Jim still had no idea what the plan had actually been. And Spock was even less forthcoming--maybe Vulcans had non-disclosure agreements about _pon farr_.

But no, this wasn’t like _pon farr_ at all, not really. Then, Spock had been hot with rage, and now he alternated between his customary restrained familiarity and a coldness Jim had never seen before, not even way back in the bad old days after the _Kobayashi Maru_. Not that there had been many of them--they’d gone from zero to world-saving pretty darn quick, with that brief interlude on Delta Vega, of course. But that had been a different kind of cold.

By the time Spock got back from his lab, it was late afternoon and Jim had gotten an embarrassingly paltry amount of work done. He had, however, done a lot of pointless ruminating about Spock, such that when Spock came back Jim discovered he’d gotten mad at him in absentia. Which boded really well for the rest of the day. He forced himself to look up at Spock and smile.

“How’s your petri dish?”

“Adequate.”

It must’ve actually been a petri dish, then, because God knew Spock would’ve corrected him if it hadn’t. Jim took a deep breath. _Fake it til you make it_ , he thought.

“What do you want to do now? I looked up a couple restaurants around here while I was waiting; do you feel like getting an early dinner so we don’t have to go out again once we get back to your place?”

Spock was looking at the painting over the desk. “That would be acceptable,” he said.

“Cool. How do you feel about Italian?”

Italian was also apparently acceptable, so a little after 5:00 they found themselves tucked into a corner table at a trattoria a few blocks from the lab. It was tiny, and as they sat there looking over menus a server made the rounds lighting tall candles on the tables as the shadows lengthened outside and the sun dipped beneath the buildings for the evening. Jim watched Spock’s face in the candlelight, and Spock looked up just in time to catch him at it. Jim felt himself blush.

“I think I’m getting the lasagna,” he said.

The server deposited a basket of bread and took their drink orders. Jim looked over the wine list, picked out a glass of chianti, and was surprised when Spock asked for the same.

“Since when do you drink?”

“I am not averse to partaking on occasion.”

“If by ‘on occasion’ you mean never.”

“You spoke of my father’s birthday feast earlier today,” Spock said. “I seem to recall imbibing a quantity of Vulcan port on the evening in question.”

“You’re kidding me,” Jim said. “You were bombed that night? Explains why you thought it was a good idea to drink that chocolate shake on top of everything. And that was before I knew about Vulcans and chocolate. I just thought you’d come down with a stomach bug or something and that’s why you spent the next two days in your quarters with a bucket next to your bed.”

“I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

“I’ll just bet you don’t. God, I was such an innocent! And to think, all this time we could have been partying together on the regular. You and your high-and-mighty ‘shore leave is illogical unless you spend it in restorative stasis’ crap. The truth will out, huh, Spock?”

“I suppose it will,” Spock said. Something about his tone of voice took Jim aback, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it before their wine arrived. They ordered their food, and when the server turned away Jim look a contemplative sip.

“Pretty good, right?”

“I concur,” Spock said. “Although I would not claim a particularly educated palate.”

“Pfft,” Jim snorted. “Everything about you is educated. There’s nothing you do that you don’t do well. Better than well; superlatively, even. It’s one of the things I...one of the things that makes you you.”

Spock ran a finger around the lip of his glass. “My mother deemed it bad form to refute a compliment.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Your mother was a smart lady.”

Evidently Spock had no trouble complimenting other people. “Indeed,” he said.

“So, you’re waiting to give your dad that painting in person?”

Spock nodded.

“When’s the next time you’re going to get to see him?”

Spock’s shoulders slumped minutely, and he took another sip of wine. “I received an invitation to New Vulcan several months from now,” he said. “I believe that the occasion will coincide with the announcement of my father’s impending marriage.”

Jim almost spit out his own mouthful of wine. “Sarek’s getting remarried? Are you kidding me?” He wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that Spock didn’t bother to comment on the rhetorical nature of Jim’s question.

“I am unsure,” Spock admitted. “I am merely extrapolating from the available evidence. My father has spent a considerable portion of his free time in recent months with a particular Vulcan woman. I suppose it is possible that they share some professional connection, but I believe it more likely that they are involved in a personal relationship. Should they decide to bond, I believe my father would prefer to disclose the circumstances to me in person. Thus, the invitation to the colony.”

“Well, shit,” Jim said, tearing up a chunk of bread into increasingly miniscule pieces. “What do you think of the whole thing?”

“My mother’s death occurred nearly seven Terran years ago. I suppose it is much to ask of a man to remain alone indefinitely, particularly considering our species’ lifespan.”

“You say that like you...like you wish he would.”

“I do not know,” Spock said. “Perhaps some part of me still regards my parents as a child might.”

“How’s that?”

“Infallible. Invulnerable. In my father’s case, there was undoubtedly a time when I thought him above the reach of all emotion. I am unsure whether this part of me finds his choice to remarry more or less Vulcan.” Spock sounded almost wry; the corner of his mouth twitched upward just slightly, the barest hint of a self-deprecating grin.

“I know what you mean,” Jim said. “I used to think about it a lot when I was a kid. I’d lie there at night and turn it over and over in my head. Part of me had this whole fantasy life, Sam and my mom and me and our new dad, like building treehouses and going on vacation and shit. But then she’d bring these guys home to meet us sometimes, and I was the biggest asshole to every single one. Those nights I’d practically cry myself to sleep, dreading it. And then it never happened, and she went off planet and she wasn’t even home for dinner, let alone some guy.” He shrugged. “I don’t know; it’s weird. You never grow out of it, I don’t think, not really. There’s always some part of you that keeps your parents frozen the way they were when you were little.”

He waved the husk of his roll at Spock. “Anyway, all that to say that I think it’s normal to feel...conflicted. But something tells me you’re not going to, like, slip a frog into her pocket or anything, so I think you’re probably good.”

“A frog?”

“Old holo. Don’t worry about it. So can they bond? Officially and everything?”

Spock nodded. “There is no tenet of Vulcan law that precludes the dissolution of a marriage bond or the formation of a new one once the first has dissolved, or…broken. As to the physical and psychic considerations, I cannot be certain. I do not know the exact nature of my parents’ bond.”

“What if they can’t...” Jim gestured at his temples.

“They may choose to marry regardless. Unbonded unions are uncommon among Vulcans, but they are not unheard of. There are...practical concerns which render such partnerships advantageous, despite the fact that a full marriage bond is preferable.”

“Practical concerns? Like _pon farr_?”

Now it was Spock’s turn to spit take. The tips of his ears greened up and Jim tried to hide his grin behind the wineglass.

Spock swallowed. “Among other things.”

“I bet you wish I didn’t know about that whole thing, huh?”

Spock was quiet for a second, appearing to choose his words carefully. “As you were my commanding officer at the time, I saw no alternative to disclosing the nature of my...affliction. Though, given the human predilection for humor at others’ expense, I must say your circumspection on the matter continues to be appreciated.”

“Look, I may like to give people grief from time to time, but I’m not a complete asshole. That stuff was private. Like you said, I only knew about it because of the chain of command. Otherwise it would’ve stayed between you and M’Benga and Uhura.”

Spock shook his head. “Once free of the _plak tow_ , I found myself glad that you knew. I concluded circumstances would have been objectively worse had you believed I had taken leave of my senses and abandoned logic altogether.”

“Spock, come on, it was pretty obvious something was wrong. I’d always have given you the benefit of the doubt on that.”

“Regardless,” Spock said.

“Well, I’m glad I know too. I just...I wish I knew what happened between you and Uhura down on the colony. Maybe I could’ve helped, talked to her about it or something.” He was fishing, and Spock probably knew it. But hell, they were practically having a heart to heart here, and he had the incident on the brain anyway. Worst that could happen was Spock shutting him down.

Spock held up a quelling hand. “Jim--”

“I mean, I can imagine it must’ve been daunting, but I always thought she was pretty culturally competent...”

“You believe Nyota chose to end our relationship due to the _pon farr_?”

Jim shrugged.

“That is far from the case,” Spock said tiredly. “However, I would prefer to change the subject.”

Jim sighed. Pressing the issue wouldn’t serve any purpose other than pissing Spock off, and since this was the longest sustained period of normalcy they’d managed since Jim had arrived he decided not to push his luck.

“Whatever you want. I was just asking, is all.”

They veered onto more prosaic topics when the food came; Jim told Spock about the command seminar and they batted ideas back and forth, arguing good-naturedly about the best way to structure the semester.

“It’s weird, right? Me in a classroom.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “Teaching is considerably less anxiety-provoking than commanding a starship.”

“I thought Vulcans didn’t get anxious.”

“We do not. I was merely extrapolating based on my knowledge of humans.”

Jim took a final bite of lasagna. “Hmmph. Well, I guess you’d know, wouldn’t you. Do you have any crazy teaching stories? Any worst case scenarios I should look out for?”

Spock pushed his plate away and leaned forward on his elbows. He was clad in black again, and it made a striking picture against the pristine white of the tablecloth. Spock’s side was pristine, anyway--Jim’s looked like the lasagna had met a bloody end, which was the inevitable consequence of his eating anything involving tomato sauce.

“I was once party to an extremely unfortunate incident,” Spock said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Indeed. An exceedingly arrogant cadet used nefarious and manipulative means to circumvent the parameters of certain of my tests.”

Jim grinned. “Oh, really? And what was his excuse?”

“He disclaimed belief in--”

“Let me guess. No-win scenarios.”

“Uncanny, Captain. Those were his precise words.”

Jim tapped his forehead. “Ever seen my psi rating? I’ll have you know I’m a category 4 empath.”

Spock shifted in his seat. Jim felt a chill run down his spine; it was like a curtain had fallen over Spock at his words. His face had fallen into a blankness like new snow, and Jim had no clue why. 

“Perhaps we should settle the bill,” Spock said.

Jim slid his credit chip out of his wallet. “I’ve got it,” he said.

***

When they left the restaurant, Spock hit the sidewalk and started walking at top speed, so that Jim actually fell behind and had to jog a little to catch up. It reminded him of that away mission, Spock hauling himself out of the sea like a disgruntled mermaid and barely giving Jim a second glance before booking it out of there. Jim couldn’t catch him until he was stymied by a crosswalk. As Jim pulled up alongside, Spock stared out at the blur of traffic like he was doing his best to pretend Jim wasn’t there.

“D’you wanna get an aircab?”

Spock shook his head. “I would prefer to walk to the subway.”

The light changed, and he led them across the street and into what Jim realized was Central Park. The park felt vast and silent as a cathedral, and Jim felt dimly aware of thick pallets of snow hanging in the trees overhead. Spock walked on, undaunted by the snowscape. His breath was visible in a billowing crystalline fog around his face as he walked. Jim got the sense that he wasn’t walking to anyplace so much as he was walking away from Jim.

“Spock,” Jim called. “Hey, Spock!” He was pissed again, the anger from earlier in the day having bubbled back to the surface hand in hand with its good buddy hurt. Goddamn, he was sick of this.

Spock kept going at first, but a second later he hesitated, then stopped altogether. He didn’t turn to face Jim, just stood there in the middle of the path, breath swirling white in the night air. He was breathing hard, gasping almost, like he’d been running. Jim closed the gap between them and stood alongside Spock, watching his profile. He reached for his shoulder as if to grasp it, turn him around, but he thought better of it and let his hand fall to his side again. Spock watched it move out of the corner of his eye.

“What the hell is going on with you? You’re so...it’s like one second everything’s totally normal and the next I’m the last person you want to be around.”

“I do not know what you’re referring to,” Spock said tightly.

“Bullshit. I knew something was up as soon as I realized you’d just peaced out of San Francisco as soon as we got out of debrief with the admiralty. And then I practically had to sell my soul to Uhura to get her to tell me where you’d gone. I thought we were friends, Spock! I mean, shit, we served together for five years and you just throw it away like it’s nothing!”

Spock looked at his feet. “Are you quite finished?”

“Like hell,” Jim said. “I don’t care what you do with the rest of your life. Stay here, come back to Starfleet, whatever; like I said before, it’s your choice and I won’t stand in your way. But before I leave you to it, you’re going to tell me what your problem is. I think you owe me that, at least.”

Now Jim really was done. Despite the cold, he felt a surge of heat that made him want to loosen the scarf knotted at his throat. He looked at Spock. He was bundled up just like before. _Like a little kid walking to the bus stop,_ Jim thought. His nose was threatening to drip with cold and his face was chapped green by the dry air. He no longer seemed angry. He looked...he looked as miserable as Jim had ever seen him. For Spock, that was saying something. 

“Spock,” Jim said quietly. It came out sounding like an entreaty. To what, Jim had no idea.

Spock exhaled; Jim wouldn’t have noticed but for the little puff of white. He slid his hands out of his pockets.

Jim reached out and took hold of them. Even with gloves on, Spock’s fingers were like ice. Before Jim quite knew what he was doing he brought them up to his face and breathed, a humid gust of warmth meant only to thaw.

Spock’s eyes fluttered closed. “Do you truly not know?” he said.

Jim’s stomach dropped. It took him a minute to find his voice again. “I--I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Spock gently extricated his hands from Jim’s, shoved them back into his pockets again like they--or Jim’s--weren’t to be trusted. “My core body temperature has fallen 20% lower than is ideal,” he said thickly. “I will return to the street and locate an aircab after all.”

Jim nodded. He felt slow and stupid, like he was drunk, his brain clogged with cotton. “Sure,” he said, like it was perfectly normal that Spock should just...declare himself to Jim and then leave him here in the frozen dark.

Spock nodded once in acknowledgement and turned away, melting into the shadows like he’d never been there at all. Jim strained to hear his footsteps; muffled by the snow, they died away too soon.

“Shit,” Jim said to the now-silent park. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Eventually, he made his way out of the park, back downtown to the coffee shop across from Spock’s apartment, where he bought a cup to go and slouched against the wall outside. He could hear strains of music floating in the chill night air, an ancient song he hadn’t heard since he was a kid.

_Let me call you sweetheart, I’m in love with you. Let me hear you whisper that you love me too._

He took out his comm and heaved a sigh before flipping it open and keying in the number.

“Hello,” Bones said, drawing the word out easily like he hadn’t bothered to check who was actually calling.

“Hey,” Jim said, waiting for the inevitable change in demeanor. Oddly enough, though, it didn’t come.

“Hey yourself. How’s it going with Spock?”

“How’d you know I was here?” There was a shrill squeal rising in the background, and Jim held the comm unit away from his ear.

“After getting your voicemail about a thousand times, I called Uhura to see if she knew where the hell you’d gotten off to. Jim, hold on a second--let me go outside. Lord help me, I told Jo she could have a sleepover, and I swear those girls could shatter glass.”

Things got quieter all of a sudden. “Okay, I’m out on the porch,” Bones said.

“Sleepover, huh? You need any help with that? I can grab a shuttle and be down there in a couple hours.”

“If a mob of 11-year-olds is the lesser evil, I’m going to guess things aren’t quite going according to plan.”

“Ugh,” Jim said. “I fucked up, Bones. Maybe beyond repair, I don’t know yet.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Bones said, like that was supposed to be reassuring. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know how to say it.”

“You find out why he hightailed it all the way out there?”

“Not in so many words, no. But I think...I think it was because of me.”

“How’s that? The two of you were like a well-oiled machine for the last four and a half years of that mission. And you know me, I’m not exactly falling all over myself to compliment either of you, but there’s no sense in denying the truth.”

Jim laughed in spite of himself. “Um, thanks, I think. No, I don’t...I don’t get the impression it was a professional issue.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. 

“So what you’re saying is--”

“I...I think Spock likes me.”

“ _Likes_ you? You sound like one of Jo’s friends.”

“Aw, shut up, Bones. You’re telling me you’re going to sit there with a straight face and listen to me tell you that I’m pretty sure Spock’s thinking about quitting Starfleet because he’s in love with me? This is Spock we’re talking about! Spock, who watched his mom die and just kept on trucking!”

“Spock, who watched his mom die and then tried to choke you to death. Spock, who thought you were dead and almost killed an augment with his bare hands,” Bones said tonelessly. “He doesn’t exactly have a flawless track record as far as overreaction goes, you know.”

“Whatever, those were outliers. Come on, you were up there with us the whole time. Can you honestly say you had the tiniest inkling this could be going on? I mean, he always acted totally normal, right?”

“Define normal,” Bones said. “But seriously, you had no idea?”

“No! I don’t know! I mean, there was some stuff that happened, but--”

“Wait a second. ‘Stuff that happened’? You planning to elaborate?”

Jim made a face at the comm. “You sure you want me to?”

Bones snorted. “Point taken. And look, you’re right. I mean, I like to think I’m pretty observant, but...I’m not sure I’d have noticed anything. Aside from your outliers, he’s nothing if not professional.” 

“Exactly! So how was I supposed to know? And now he’s acting all…” Jim gestured wildly, selfishly wishing Bones were actually there instead of out on his porch in Georgia, actually being a dad for the first time in way too long.

“Well, doesn’t much matter,” Bones said, considering. “Now you know. Question is, what are you planning to do about it?” 

Jim sighed, the air billowing up white around him. He thought of Spock back in the park, how cold he’d looked. He hoped he was warmer now. “I don’t know,” he said. “Look, thanks, Bones, but I know you need to get back to your slumber party.” 

“They said something about manicures later. I might take them up on it; my cuticles are looking a little ragged. Gotta keep these hands in perfect working order, you know.” 

“Uh huh,” Jim said. “Enjoy your spa treatment.” 

“Lemme know how it goes, will you? And...the keycode here’s the same as my quarters on the ship, just in case you need to crash.” 

“Thanks. I hope I don’t need to take you up on it.” 

“Me too,” Bones said. “Whatever that ends up meaning.” 

“Later, Bones.” 

“Bye, Jim.”

Jim shoved the comm in his back pocket and drained the rest of his tepid cup of coffee. He was cold now himself, colder than before anyway, and while he wasn’t exactly thrilled about going back to Spock’s, he didn’t exactly have a lot of options. He squinted at the building opposite, trying to pick out which of the windows was his, whether or not the lights were still on. Finally he gave up trying to decide and jogged across the street, dodging obvious patches of ice and stepping gingerly on suspect expanses of snow until he made it safely to the sidewalk again. 

Outside Spock’s front door, he realized he didn’t know the code, and there was no way in hell he was pressing that buzzer and rousing Spock from whatever he was doing inside. He thought of his conversation with Bones, his fingers hovering over Spock’s lockpad for a second before he shrugged and keyed in the door code to the first officer’s quarters on the _Enterprise_. A green light glowed invitingly at him, and he heard the quiet _snick_ of the lock. Somehow, he didn’t feel smug, just a little empty and naggingly sad. He shook his head, like he could dislodge the feeling that way. It didn’t work. 

What a night, he thought, closing the door behind him as quietly as possible. There was a slice of yellow light burning under Spock’s bedroom door, and Jim thought he caught a whiff of incense. He stepped over to the couch, sat down heavily and slid out of his boots. Last night’s blanket was folded neatly at one end of the couch, and despite the fact that it was barely 10:00 Jim flopped backwards to sprawl along the couch’s length and hauled the blanket over him without bothering to undress further. Being awake had become somehow unbearable, but there was the coffee, and the inevitable rumination, so that the light beneath Spock’s door had long since been extinguished when Jim finally fell asleep.

He woke up with a start in the middle of the night, blinking the fragments of a dream away into the darkness. He’d been dreaming about running. Running and Spock, though how the two fit together seemed to have been lost upon waking. He could still smell the dregs of Spock’s incense hanging in the air, undoubtedly infecting his subconscious. _Figures,_ he thought, sitting up and punching the pillow behind him into a slightly less aggressively fluffy shape. That smell--if he closed his eyes, he could almost be back on the ship, incense and recorded Vulcan lyre music wafting through their shared bathroom and under Jim’s door. He’d been annoyed with it at first, way back in the beginning when they were still feeling things out. He remembered the first time it made him grin, imagining Spock just a wall away. He remembered the first time he’d slumped against his side of the wall and pressed a hand to it, feeling the little vibrations of the ship and wishing for an anchor. After bad missions, mostly, but sometimes just because. He’d been acting like an idiot that night he asked Spock to teach him to meditate, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been a little bit serious. Ritual, religion, love--these things tethered people in a way Jim couldn’t always relate to. But there were nights when he felt in danger of drifting off into the black, and the ties that bind started to seem more like lifelines. 

It was Spock, he thought. If you wanted to talk about lifelines, literal or metaphorical, it was Spock, wasn’t it? Palm pressed against Spock’s wall, back pressed against Spock’s back with a phaser in hand and transporters locked on at the last possible moment, Spock on the pad afterwards with a wry look for Jim’s cool-we’re-not-dead bravado. And then chess, banter, goodbye, fall into bed and up at 0600 to do it all over again. Spock’s was the first face Jim saw as he stepped out of his quarters bleary-eyed--he’d never be a morning person-- and the last he saw at night 90% of the time. The thought of Spock leaving, of that ending...it made Jim’s heart pound sickly and out of time. And what was that? Was that normal? 

_Define normal,_ said Bones in Jim’s head. He kicked off the blanket and sat up. 

He stood up, glad for the fact that he hadn’t bothered to get undressed earlier. If he’d had to fumble with his clothes, he was pretty sure he’d have lost his nerve. As it was, he had to studiously ignore the churning in his stomach as he knocked lightly on Spock’s door and went inside without waiting for a response. Spock was sitting up in bed, PADD propped against his knees, his face bathed in its blueish glow. He looked up at Jim, expression completely neutral.

“Um,” Jim said. “Can I come in?” 

“It appears you already have.” 

Jim crossed the room to sit gingerly on the edge of the bed. Spock drew himself up beneath the covers, away from Jim, and the bluntness of the gesture stuck in Jim’s throat. His mouth was dry. Spock watched him expectantly. 

“You,” Jim started. “You...love me?” 

“Yes,” Spock said quietly, and though Jim knew--had known for hours and maybe longer, if he was being honest and soul-searching about it--the word was a gut punch anyway. It was then that Jim realized he had no idea how he’d planned to respond, if he’d ever even had a plan in the first place beyond barging into Spock’s bedroom in the middle of the night with nothing but a dawning realization. 

“What if I loved you back?” 

A dawning realization, and an absolute lack of eloquence. 

“An irrelevant question, as you have already stated that you do not,” Spock said, casually as if he was rattling off sensor readings. Jim had to hand it to him; he was cold as marble when he wanted to be. If he hadn’t been there, Jim would never have guessed that hours before he’d held Spock’s hands in his own, felt them shake and seen Spock stand there with eyes like a trapped animal’s. 

“I did not! When did I say that?” 

Spock looked down at his PADD, his eyes hidden in shadow. “On the train, earlier this afternoon, you stated that you had not--”

Jim groaned, letting his head drop into his hands. “I’m an idiot,” he said, looking back up at Spock, who peered at him owlishly from the other end of the bed, his lips pressed together bloodlessly. “Can I tell you something?” 

Spock nodded, his face still infuriatingly blank. 

“Anchors,” Jim said. 

“Anchors,” Spock repeated. He sat forward a little and sucked his lower lip into his mouth, and how and why had Jim not noticed how he did that all the time, staring at the sensor array or a beaker of some alien slurry or now, staring at Jim like he was some kind of perplexing space anomaly. 

Jim nodded. “Just...just go with me here, okay? The thing is, I always thought I didn’t need anything...anything to ground me. I mean, look, if you want to go the overarching metaphorical route, I’m kind of at my best in space. Dirtside, I don’t really do all that well. I tend to bloody things up a little. It...it feels like my natural state. You can ask Uhura about it. I guess you probably already have, but...yeah. Get in fights, cheat on tests, that was my thing. Still is, but I’m trying not to--” He waved his hands around a little desperately, like he could pull the right words out of the air. 

“I was good in space, on the mission. I’m not so far up my own ass that I can’t see that. All of us, the whole crew, we did good. But Spock, I did better because of you. Not just at the work, at everything. And I don’t think I really...I didn’t really notice it until it--until you were gone. And I’m doing okay, you know? I’m only a little bit of a mess. Except I can’t stop thinking about you here, and me up there, and it’s fucking wrong, Spock. It’s all wrong. And it’s not my brain or my ego or whatever that’s telling me that, it’s--it’s here.” 

He clapped his hand over what was probably actually a lung or his gallbladder or something, as close as he could get to the root of that sick and twisty feeling that he got when he thought about a mission--hell, about a _life_ \--without Spock. 

“So I told you I hadn’t found love, and maybe I was lying, or maybe I was just an idiot, because this...I mean, fuck, what else could this be?” 

“Perhaps an acute episode of glossolalia,” Spock said. 

“Fuck you, I don’t even know what that is.” But Spock’s cheek was doing that repressive twitching thing again, and it looked like it was spreading down to the corners of his mouth. Both of them this time, which...might have been unprecedented. Spock had let himself unspool slightly from his tense coil at the head of the bed, and there was a lump of foot just close enough for Jim to reach out and grasp over the dense weave of blanket. As first moves went, it wasn’t the smoothest, but things between them had always been a little mixed up, hadn’t they? Maybe that was why it had taken this for Jim to see what had been right there in front of his dumb face for--

“How long?” 

Spock shrugged. “I cannot say,” he said. “Although I must admit to a certain degree of...intrigue regarding you that dates from our first meeting.” 

“You thought it was hot that I hacked your test, is what you’re saying.” 

Spock opened his mouth as if to refute Jim, but appeared to reconsider. “Yes,” he said. 

Jim laughed. “What the fuck,” he said. “Get over here.” But he went instead, folding his legs underneath him and leaning forward on the bed. Spock was wearing a plain white t-shirt, which was bizarre, but Jim decided to mull that over later. He grabbed a handful of it and tugged Spock forward to kiss. 

It wasn’t the first time, but it felt so different that Jim thought it might as well have been. Spock went slack when their lips met, loose as Jim had ever felt him, as if the kiss had drained him of some long-held tension. Jim reached around and caught him around the waist, the action putting him in mind of that first night, the way Spock had shrugged him off and just taken. When they parted, Jim leaned in to rest his forehead against Spock’s. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.” 

“It is inconsequential,” Spock said. “In the grand scheme of things.”  
“I hope so.” 

“I am unconcerned.” 

Jim gestured at the space beside Spock. “Can I?” Spock nodded, and Jim stretched out on his back, slipping under the covers with an out-of-place illicit thrill that reminded him way too much of high school. 

“Do you still wish to know what transpired on the colony during the _plak tow_?” Spock asked quietly. Jim slid his hand over to Spock’s and hesitated for a moment before taking it in his, gratified to note that it was warmer by far than it had been in the park. He didn’t miss the way Spock’s eyes fluttered closed for a second, a little tell he remembered from before. 

“If you don’t mind telling me,” Jim said. 

“Nyota and I traveled to the colony with the intent to bond,” he said. “It is the Vulcan way. I spoke to you previously of my betrothed, T’Pring; as she perished on Vulcan, I was not subject to the _kal-if-fee_. Thus, I thought it a simple matter of seeking out an adept before the peak of the fever, and we did so.” 

“And?” 

Spock shook his head. “What transpired was...curious,” he said. “Nyota and I enjoyed a mutually satisfactory relationship; I did not foresee any obstacles to our bonding. Yet when the adept attempted to join our minds, she was unable to do so.” 

“But you...you both wanted it, right? Why wouldn’t it work?” 

“I do not know,” Spock said. “Admittedly, I was not entirely lucid at the time. But the secrets of the mind, Vulcan or human, are not always intelligible to even the most highly trained. The adept could provide no answer; she stated only that our minds were incompatible.” 

Jim gave a low whistle. “That’s awful,” he said. 

He remembered them right after it happened. Uhura had beamed back alone and immediately put in for two days personal leave, after which she returned to alpha shift duty as if nothing had ever happened. Jim had tried to get it out of her exactly once. She gave him an impossibly diplomatic non-answer and told him in no uncertain terms to leave it alone, with her and with Spock. So when Spock came back the following week, Jim had been all set never to mention it again. He wasn’t sure it had been better or worse that Spock had seemed reasonably eager to explain himself, to a certain extent anyway. 

“Vulcan biology,” Jim said, shaking his head. “No offense, but there has to be a better way. So...you said you had to, uh, mate or die, right? And you couldn’t bond with Uhura, and you’re not dead. So how did you--”

“There is a framework in place for such eventualities,” Spock said, his voice even. “I was forced to take advantage of it.” 

Jim sat up. He remembered Spock before he and Uhura had gone to the colony. The idea of Spock with a stranger, in that state…his distress must have been obvious, because Spock laid a careful hand on his arm. 

“Jim, please. If it appeases you, I remember very little of the incident. It was simply a means to an end. I did not desire death in the throes of the _plak tow_.” 

“Well, obviously. It’s just…” He shook his head. “Nevermind. It was awhile ago now, right? Water under the bridge.” 

“Indeed. I admit, however, to substantial regret that my relationship with Nyota ended thusly.” 

“Of course you do,” Jim said. “Neither of you deserved that.” 

They sat together in silence for awhile. Spock closed the cover on his PADD with a soft click and set it carefully on the floor. 

“I contemplated kolinahr,” Spock said finally. “When I realized what I felt for you. But there was no longer a Gol to go to, and I had long doubted my ability to purge all emotion. It seemed more practical to simply leave.” 

“But you didn’t. You finished out the mission.” 

“I may be a poor specimen of a Vulcan, but I consider myself an exemplary Starfleet officer,” Spock said dryly. “I could not allow a personal matter to compromise the discharge of my duties.” 

“Well, you didn’t, that’s for damn sure.” Jim scrubbed a hand over his face. “You should’ve told me.” 

“Perhaps,” Spock said. “Can you truly say you would have reacted favorably?” 

“Hell, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “You’re probably right. And anyway, you can’t change the past, despite what certain alternate versions of you might have to say about it.” 

“I believe he would agree with you, and yet somehow manage to act in precisely the opposite manner, as is his apparent custom in our timeline thus far.” 

“He’s been good lately, though,” Jim said. “Letting us blunder through on our own.” 

“For better or for worse.” Spock leaned down and rested his head on Jim’s shoulder. The novelty of the contact sent a little thrill through him. He could smell Spock, he realized. He wasn’t sure he’d ever really noticed before. He smelled like his incense and like clean cotton. Jim smiled. 

“For better, I hope. Now that we’ve got our shit together.” 

“I wish to go on record as stating mine has been together for quite some time.” 

“Fair enough,” Jim said, laughing. “I guess I owe you. Don’t guess you can think of anything you want as payback?” 

Spock hummed into Jim’s neck. “As it happens, I believe I can.”

Five months later

Jim bounced on the balls of his feet and scanned the crowd. The New Vulcan spaceport was jammed with rush hour commuters, and the overall ubiquity of variations on the shiny black bowl cut made it harder than usual to pick Spock out. Finally, though, Jim saw him, cutting through a sea of his fellow Vulcans with a bearing that was somehow unmistakably his own.

Spock met his eyes, and Jim couldn’t not smile, the slow warm grin that worked its way over his face whenever he saw Spock these days, whenever he thought about him. The former wasn’t nearly enough; all the cajoling and blow jobs in the world couldn’t convince Spock to abandon his post in New York, not that Jim would really have expected him to anyway. So they’d been doing the distance thing. The fact that there hadn’t been an explicit conversation about Spock’s plans after his contract ran out--well, Jim was trying not to think about that too hard. 

Back in San Francisco, he’d settled in to what he thought was a pretty decent routine, teaching his class--oh god, why--three mornings a week, sitting on a bunch of committees, shuttling and beaming up to the ship to supervise various aspects of the refit. Teaching was worse than Klingons and Romulans combined, so that injected a little good old-fashioned pulse racing terror into Jim’s day. But the rest of it...the rest of it was really freaking boring.

Sometimes he thought back to that night at the bar with Pike, the night before everything went to red hell in that fucking conference room. _They’re giving her back to me._ He must’ve been so excited, Jim thought. He’d never have let on, never have let Jim see--at least not that night. But god, if Pike was anything like Jim, he must have wanted space so badly that night he could taste it. 

Jim was glad Pike had died a captain again, more or less. But anyway. 

Spock kissed Jim hello, which took him aback for a second until he realized that this was probably less objectively weird than handholding here in Logic Land. 

“How was your trip?” Jim asked on their walk to baggage claim. 

“Uneventful,” Spock said. “I completed several data analyses and opted to pass the remainder of the journey in meditation.” 

“Fun. I watched like ten movies and didn’t grade any of the papers I brought, so that was productive.” 

“Apparently,” Spock said, bending to retrieve his pack from the short-range transporter pad. “I took the liberty of hiring an aircar for the duration of our stay; my father’s residence is located at some distance from the city center, and I thought the trip might be more comfortable in private.” 

Jim nudged him in the shoulder. “You wanna go parking?” 

Spock blinked. If he got the reference, he gave no indication. “We should locate our rental,” he said, but Jim thought he caught a hint of a smile as Spock turned away. Oh well, he thought. He wasn’t going to stress. It always took them a little while to get into the groove when they got back together, and who knew how long it might take here. 

The colony had been chosen for its similarities to Vulcan. Jim hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time there before her untimely destruction, but Spock had assured him on more than one occasion that New Vulcan, on the surface at least, was passably close to her namesake. “There are subtle differences, however,” he’d said once, staring out into the violet night after some diplomatic function or other. Jim wondered then what must be like, living someplace designed as a bizarro replacement for what you’d lost. Simulated, never duplicated. He wondered what exactly Spock thought was different: birdsong, the carmine tint of the soil, the way the wind smelled. 

Now, he watched the desert skim by around them as the aircar zipped through the sky en route to Sarek’s compound. Spock said nothing, but when Jim reached across the snug front cabin to rest his hand on Spock’s thigh he looked sidelong at Jim and let his face soften. 

“I am...grateful that you chose to accompany me,” Spock said. 

“Come on, of course I was going to come. This is kind of a big deal, after all.” 

Spock sighed. “Indeed.” 

Sarek’s house, when they reached it, was beautiful. It was low lying and terracotta red, rising up just slightly over the sandy rockscape of a boulder-strewn foothill. 

“My home on Vulcan was set into a mountain,” Spock said.

“Okay,” Jim said mildly. “This one looks pretty good too, though. Just saying.” 

“My father appreciates innovation in architecture. I believe he capitalized on the opportunity to build a new residence from the ground up.” 

“Might as well make the best of things, I guess.” 

Spock didn’t reply. They landed the car and parked in front of the house, walking down a long and sloping drive framed on either side by herbal-smelling desert plants. It seemed to Jim that Spock stood up straighter with every foot they advanced. As if by contrast, Jim got sweatier and gaspier, as was his custom in the thin New Vulcan atmosphere. 

“Have you taken your tri-ox compound?” Spock asked. 

“I shot up in the shuttle right after we landed. I can’t take another one for another four hours. But I’m used to it; I’ll be fine.” 

Spock seemed unconvinced. 

“I’m not going to embarrass you in front of your dad’s new ladyfriend, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Jim said. 

“Hardly,” Spock snapped. “If she is discomfited by an involuntary physiological response, it is she who should suffer chagrin at the gross illogic implied therein.” 

“Aw, baby, you’re defending me against stuff that hasn’t even happened yet. That’s so sweet of you.” 

The look Spock gave him in return indicated the tables could turn pretty damn quick, so Jim opted to quit while he was ahead. And then Sarek opened the front door and stepped outside, joined by the previously mentioned ladyfriend, who was...decidedly not lacking in the looks department. Not lacking at all. 

_Get it, Sarek,_ Jim thought. Spock glared at him like he knew exactly what Jim was thinking, which...he probably did. Jim wasn’t exactly a sphinx when it came to appreciation of the physical form. 

“Spock, Captain Kirk.” Sarek nodded in greeting, stepping forward and gesturing back at the woman behind him. She was tall and somewhat imposing, though Jim thought he’d probably have found her moreso back in the days...well, the days before Spock. She seemed younger than Sarek, but not by much. Her hair was long and dark, threaded with silver and collected in a heavy braid that ran down her back. 

“Allow me to introduce T’Varr,” he said. “T’Varr, my son and his…” Sarek looked from Jim to Spock, and Jim had the sudden realization that he wasn’t sure what, if anything, Spock had told him. 

“My captain,” Spock said neatly, and held up his hand in the _ta’al_. “Greetings, T’Varr. I took the liberty of undertaking personal research into your employment record with the ambassadorial office, and it would appear you are directly responsible for navigating the colony’s technical transfer from Mellorian to Vulcan space. Such a tactically complicated diplomatic agreement is unprecedented, and highly commendable.” 

“My thanks, Spock cha’ Sarek,” said T’Varr, evidently unmoved by what basically amounted to Spock admitting he was kind of a creepy stalker. “Likewise, your record with Starfleet is equally commendable, as is your current service to the Vulcan people in furthering the work of the Science Academy. My bonded lost his life at the Academy on the day of the _Vashaya_. I feel certain his legacy is upheld through your work and that of your colleagues.” 

Jim swallowed and looked at Sarek, sorely tempted to raise an eyebrow of his own. It shouldn’t be surprising that T’Varr had lost her own partner to Nero, but Jim hadn’t considered it until now. He wondered if Spock had, and if he’d done it before or after he’d decided to downgrade Jim to “colleague” status for the duration of this visit. What the fuck. He sighed. Damn, he was getting hot.

“Perhaps we should adjourn to the interior of the house,” Sarek said, looking at Jim. “I apologize, Captain. I failed to recall your sensitivity to our atmosphere.” 

Jim waved him off. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’ve got another tri-ox shot coming my way later, so--”  
Because of course, _of course,_ Jim’s traitorous body chose this exact moment to be overcome with a fit of dizziness, and he flailed for the nearest wall in a full-on princess swoon. 

He came to a second later, blinking up into Spock’s obviously concerned face. Spock, who was...smoothing Jim’s sweaty hair back from his brow and clutching him in a decidedly non-collegial way. 

“Jim,” Spock was saying. “Jim, can you hear me?” 

“Of course I can hear you,” Jim said. “You’re like an inch away from my face.” 

Spock’s furrowed brow relaxed slightly, and he seemed to realize what he was doing, because he loosened his death grip and glanced back at Sarek and T’Varr. “Can you stand?” 

Jim nodded, reaching up to squeeze Spock’s shoulder. “I think so. Uh, sorry for conking out like that, I guess I didn’t realize it had gotten that bad.” 

“Apologies are unneccessary,” Spock said. “My father was correct, it is we who should apologize to you for our failure to recognize your deteriorating condition.” Spock leaned closer, his breath hot against Jim’s ear. “I am sorry,” he whispered, and Jim got the feeling he was talking about more than just Jim’s fainting spell. 

Jim nodded again, tightening his grip on Spock’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“I will contact Dr. McCoy,” Spock said as he helped Jim up. “Perhaps you require an increased dosage of tri-ox.”

Sarek cleared his throat. Jim might still have been a little woozy, but there was no way he was imagining the faint look of amusement on his face as he gestured to the open doorway and the beckoning shade within.

***

After dinner, Jim stumbled through the doorway of their guest room with none of his usual grace. He was wiped, which was a bummer, because getting Spock in the company of other Vulcans seemed to reawaken some kind of latent teenage rebellion. Jim wanted nothing more than to take advantage of it before Spock inevitably came to his senses.

“You sure there’s not, like, a vintage air car you feel like hotwiring? I’m up for a joyride if you are. I guess we could take the rental, but where’s the fun in that?” Jim yawned in spite of himself and let Spock fix him with a skeptical eyebrow as they made their way over to the bed. 

“Firstly, I have no idea what you are referring to. Secondly, you are nearly asleep on your feet. I fear petty thievery must be deferred to tomorrow morning at the earliest.” 

“But it’s no fun if it’s in broad daylight,” Jim said, feigning a pout. He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, spreading his legs wide so that Spock could kneel between them, palms on Jim’s knees. He leaned in for a kiss. 

“You were okay at dinner?” 

Spock looked over Jim’s shoulder for a minute, like there was something very interesting on the opposite wall. 

“‘Okay’ has--”

“Yes, I know,” Jim said, tone only slightly chiding. “But you know what I mean.” 

Spock’s shoulders slumped minutely. “If one operates under the definition of ‘okay’ that means neither favorable nor wholly negative, I suppose the word might apply to me at this time.” 

“She isn’t bad, though, right?” 

“She is not.” 

“And you didn’t, like, leap across the table and attack her or anything, so.” 

“I did not. Although T’varr wisely avoided the topic of my mother altogether, so who can say with certainty what might have occurred.” 

Jim rolled his eyes. “Ha ha,” he said. “But seriously, you’re okay?” 

“Yes,” Spock said. “My father appears content. T’varr is an intelligent and reasonable being, capable of providing both intellectual and...physical modes of companionship. It is logical that Sarek should seek to bond with her.” 

The dinner had gone well, Jim thought, as well as a double date can go when three of the four diners were Vulcan and two were father and son. Maybe Sarek had prepped T’Varr or something; she certainly seemed to take Jim in greater stride than other Vulcans he’d met over the years. 

“Hmm,” he said, considering. “You’re right, it makes perfect sense. Propagation of the species, intellectual stimulation. And hey, don’t kill me, but she’s kind of hot.” 

Spock studiously did not roll his eyes. 

Jim sighed. “So...why don’t I believe you, then?” 

“You do not believe I am being truthful in my estimation of T’Varr?” 

“No, I don’t believe you’re actually okay.” 

Spock stayed quiet, bowing his head. Then he looked up at Jim, opened his mouth as if to say something and closed it again. Something was definitely up, but there wasn’t much point in bugging Spock about it if he wasn’t planning on being forthcoming. Jim was too damn tired, anyway. 

“I’m going to go take a shower,” he said. “You want to come?” 

Spock looked like he wanted to say no, but he nodded anyway. That fact made Jim happier than he wanted to admit. He stripped off his shirt and dragged himself off the bed and into the bathroom, turning the shower on and running his hand under it to test the temperature. He liked it hot, just this side of too much, which as it happened was how Jim liked a lot of things. Spock followed him into the bathroom a minute later, clad only in his boxers. He moved behind Jim and pressed a kiss to his bare shoulder. 

“It’s weird that your dad has water piped in,” Jim said. “I mean, not that I’m complaining, but I don’t think I’ve seen showers or tubs anywhere else on the colony.” 

“My mother favored them,” Spock said. “I believe initially my father viewed their installation as something of a sore point, as there is passing little logic in such an indulgence when sonics can accomplish the same goal. As my mother told it, he claimed to avoid them on principle, until one evening she returned to our residence unexpectedly to find him in the bath surrounded by copious amounts of foam.” 

“Sarek taking a bubble bath,” Jim said, shaking his head. “I love it. And I love that he kept the tradition alive, because I swear those shuttles turn me into a human pretzel.” He bent down to take off his pants and winced as his shoulders protested. 

Spock said nothing, just stepped into the shower and held out a hand. Jim took it and allowed himself to be guided into the steamy cubicle and propped up against the wall. Spock took up a bar of soap and a cloth and set about washing Jim’s back. The hot water and the rough cloth felt amazing, and Jim let his eyes close. Spock began to follow the cloth with his mouth, trailing kisses over Jim’s body, gradually working his way south. 

“You don’t have to--”

If Spock replied, his answer was drowned out by the water. Jim let his head come to rest against the wall, water raining down over his face, his back. Spock stood, cupping Jim’s chin and turning his face to kiss. They hadn’t been together like this in weeks. Jim moaned into Spock’s mouth, turning around to face him and twining his arms around his neck. The water sheeting down around them made him feel oddly disconnected from reality, like they were in some inner world of their own making. Spock reached between them and took Jim in hand, and Jim felt only the barest pang of guilt as he let himself fall against Spock, let Spock hold him around the waist and take his weight. 

“Feels good,” Jim said. Spock’s answering silence made him feel like he was talking into a void. He brought his hand up and ran his fingers over Spock’s lips. They were moving; Spock was muttering something. It was too low for Jim to hear, if he was even supposed to hear it. 

Jim laid his head on Spock’s shoulder and pressed his mouth to the skin there, imagining he could taste it. Spock moved over Jim’s slick flesh at an unhurried pace, not drawing it out but not rushing either. Jim was so very tired, the long shuttle trip and the physiological toll of the planet’s atmosphere conspiring against him, so that when Jim came it felt like his pleasure welled up suddenly from deep inside him. He moaned into Spock’s neck as Spock stroked him through it, wet lips moving against the shell of Jim’s ear. 

Spock ran the washcloth tenderly over him one more time and turned off the water, helping Jim out of the shower and wrapping a thick white towel around him before doing the same to himself. Jim glanced down at Spock’s body, flushed green from the warmth of the water. He was half hard, and Jim’s sense of guilt returned. “What about you?” 

Spock shook his head. “Unnecessary,” he said. “I too am fatigued.” 

Jim reached for his hand. “Let’s go to bed, then.” They dried themselves off and went back into the bedroom, crawling under the covers and huddling like children. Sleep weighed Jim down like a stone, but he found he couldn’t keep his brain from whirling. Next to him, Spock’s body was tense as a bowstring. He breathed evenly, at intervals he was probably calculating to the millisecond, but he wasn’t fooling Jim. He rolled over on his side and sighed theatrically, staring at Spock pointedly until he could no longer pretend Jim wasn’t trying to get his attention.

“I was unaware you were still awake,” Spock said. 

“Oh, save it,” Jim said, kissing Spock’s arm. “Look, I’m bone-tired here, and I’m not going to be able to sleep until you tell me what’s wrong. So you might as well get it over with.” 

Spock didn’t respond. Finally, Jim groaned and propped himself up on one arm. “Computer, lights at 30%.” When the lights came up, Spock was studying the ceiling like it held the answer to life’s mysteries. 

“You don’t make it easy, do you? That was rhetorical, by the way,” Jim said, holding up a hand to forestall Spock’s rebuttal. “Let me throw out a guess, all right?” 

“Please,” Spock said dryly. 

Jim took a breath. “We haven’t talked about the mission yet, Spock, and we’ve both had our orders for a solid month. I know you’ve got yours because I had to sign off on your assignment. Everyone else has theirs, too, and 87% of the crew accepted. You hear that? We’ve got an 87% retention rate. Best in the fleet. It’s kind of a thorn in my side that my damn first officer is part of that unlucky 13%, though, let me tell you. And that’s speaking as your captain, where I’ve got to be diplomatic.” He swallowed. “As your boyfriend, I’d like to go on record as saying what the _fuck_? Are you stringing things out just to torture me? Or are you just not planning on signing on?” 

Spock sat up too now. He looked miserable again, the way he’d looked back when Jim first came to see him in New York, all bluster and audacity. “Jim--”

“Because look, if you aren’t...Spock, you can just tell me, okay? I’ll...we’ll deal with it. We’ll make it work.” 

Spock bit his lip. “I do not--”

Jim’s stomach dropped. “Wait, are...are you going to break up with me?” 

“If you will allow me to speak,” Spock said pointedly. “I do not wish it. I have...Jim, to say I have enjoyed our association is the depth of understatement. I believe you know my feelings on the matter.” 

“I love you too,” Jim said. “So why the hell are you even thinking about this?” 

“I have come to believe that it may be impossible for me to join with another in the way of my people. Knowing this, I would not have you bind yourself to me.” 

Jim had to mull that over for a minute, because sometimes he forgot that for a freaking supergenius Spock could be so monumentally dumb. “You do realize that I can’t bond with another human that way, right? I mean, putting aside all thing ‘binding’ talk, it’d be like me getting pissed off about something I was never going to get anyway. It doesn’t make any sense.” 

Spock traced the seam of the coverlet with his index finger. “You misunderstand,” he said. “It is the Vulcan way. If I cannot share a marriage bond with my intended, I am not certain I wish to pursue such a relationship at all.” 

“But that’s crazy,” Jim said. “Spock, that’s--” 

“You cannot comprehend it. Jim, please, do not take offense. Your species has no analogue for this practice; it is understandable that you should have difficulty conceiving of its importance to me.” 

“What about Sarek and T’Varr, though? Marriage without the bond isn’t unheard of; you said so yourself.” Jim tried to ignore the little voice in his head asking what the everloving fuck he was doing arguing about marriage with Spock. 

“My father was bonded to my mother, T’Varr to her own partner. Their current relationship is inapplicable to my current predicament.” 

“So what, you’re going to go find where all these adepts are hiding now and purge all your emotions? And then go fuck some stranger every seven years?” 

“Once one has attained _kolinahr_ , one is no longer subject to the _pon farr_ cycle,” Spock said. 

Jim covered his face with his hands. “Not the point.” 

His previous exhaustion seemed to have been chased from his veins by adrenaline. He wanted to punch something, or run. But there was only Spock, sitting sadly in the middle of the bed, and there was nothing about Spock now that appealed to the ugly violence coursing through Jim. He flopped back onto the pillows instead, staring up at the ceiling. Maybe Spock was right; maybe it did have the answers. 

“But you don’t know,” Jim said presently. 

“Pardon?” 

“You don’t know for sure that you can’t bond. You haven’t tried with anyone since Uhura. Plus, it doesn’t make sense that you wouldn’t be able to--you have a familial bond with your dad, and you had one with your mother too, right?” 

“That is correct,” Spock said. “Jim, I have considered these factors.” 

“So then you’re scared,” Jim said, whacking the mattress with the flat of his hand. 

“I am hardly--”

“You’re fucking scared, Spock! It’s an experiment, for god’s sake! You’re a scientist! And look, you’ve got a willing lab rat sitting right here in front of you.” 

“You are willing to attempt a bond with me?” It was the closest to a scoff Jim had ever heard from Spock, and to hear the tone of voice in conversation with him did something to Jim, gutted him in a way he’d never felt before. The feeling made him want to say things, do things...do anything to be sure Spock never felt that way about him again. 

“Of course I am, you idiot,” he said. “You think...you think I would have started this with you in the first place if I wasn’t?” 

“We never discussed it.” 

“We’ve been on opposite coasts,” Jim said. “And then you didn’t accept the reappointment to the ship, and I don’t know, I thought...well, who cares what I thought. If this is what it’s going to take to get you to stay with me, of course I’ll do it.” 

“You would bond with me to keep me on the ship?” The incredulity in Spock’s voice was nearly palpable. 

“I’d bond with you because I love you, you dense Vulcan! And to keep you on the ship. But mostly because I love you.” 

Spock stared at him. “Human relationships typically progress to this point after a greater duration.” 

“You got engaged when you were seven.” 

“You are correct,” Spock said, somewhat grudgingly. 

“You don’t have to bond-bond us, do you? Can’t we just do some reconnaissance, see if it’s even possible?” 

Spock scooted a little closer to Jim, so that their shoulders were touching. The contact made Jim feel better, grounded. He took Spock’s hand. 

“I do not know,” Spock said. “It may be that if our minds are compatible, a bond spontaneously arises. I am no adept, Jim. I know these principles in theory only.” 

Jim took a deep breath, held it for a minute and let it out. When he did, he felt a little bit lighter. He squeezed Spock’s hand. “That’s okay,” he said. “I’ll do it anyway.” He looked at Spock. “Do you want to? I mean, I think if you feel this strongly about it, you should find out, but it’s obviously your call.” 

Spock closed his eyes, nodded slowly. “I desire it,” he said, two points of green deepening on his cheeks. “I admit to trepidation regarding the outcome--”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Jim said, hoping he sounded decisive.  
“So how do we do this?” 

There wasn’t much to it, in the end. They sat facing each other, cross-legged, so close their knees were touching. Jim glanced down at Spock’s lap and saw he was half hard again. He cleared his throat and pointed. Spock blushed again and looked like he wanted to cover himself, but he didn’t. “The prospect of touching your mind,” he said by way of explanation. Jim wasn’t sure whether to be intimidated or turned on, but the question was rapidly becoming moot, because Spock had raised his hand, fingers splayed. He leaned closer; Jim could see the blood jump at his throat. He hovered over the meld points, eyes heavy-lidded. 

“Are you certain?” 

“Yeah,” Jim said. 

Then they were falling.

It felt...it felt like nothing Jim could describe. He had no point of reference, his brain grasping at straws of memory in an attempt to draw some kind of comparison to something it knew. It felt _good_ , like sex or like sinking into a bath, the deep thrumming pleasure of a stretch, of fingers carding through hair. All the world’s small comforts rolled into one, warm and pulsing. Spock was there, hovering like a visitor in the doorway. The mental impression of him was so very Spock that it made Jim want to laugh. 

_Come in,_ Jim thought, and then Spock was everywhere. 

“Oh my god,” Jim said. He must’ve said it out loud too; it reverberated, the soundwaves stretching out and jarring a thousandfold. Better just to think, maybe. 

_Yes,_ said Spock. 

_You feel so good._

_Yes,_ said Spock, and there was an eternity, a symphony, an eight-course dinner in that syllable. 

Jim thought hard about kissing then, and it was a long time before they came back to themselves.

***

He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling again. There was a hairline crack like a miniature black river overhead. He wondered if he could fall into it, but no, probably not. His head ached a little, and his stomach itched. He moved to scratch it and dragged his hand through a mess of gummy, cooling semen.

 _Okay,_ he thought. 

There was an answering flicker of amusement in his mind. 

Jim sat up, wiping his hand on the blanket. He looked over at Spock, who was perched at the head of the bed watching him. Jim had the belated recollection that they’d been trying to see if something would happen. 

“Did it work?” His voice was rough, his throat dry. 

“Yes.” 

Jim wrinkled his nose. He couldn’t quite remember what _it_ was. “Are you happy?” 

_Yes._

What Jim was, was tired. His head felt stuffed with cotton, ears brimming with it. He thought he felt Spock guide him down against the pillow, curl around him like a cat, but then he was asleep and he didn’t know what he felt any more.

***

Jim woke up with a song in his head.

He rolled over, slid a hand between his cheek and the pillow. He was nose to nose with Spock. 

“Let me call you sweetheart,” he said. 

“I’m in love with you,” said Spock. He blinked. Then, “Fascinating. I somehow possess the knowledge that this is a piece of popular music dating from early in your twentieth century--a love song.” 

Jim felt that smile break over his face. “You’re in my head,” he said. 

Spock nodded. 

Jim smiled wider. _Welcome home._


End file.
